When Things Go Right

Lindsay has a strong personality and distant relatives are always asking about her. So I posted the above video to YouTube last winter and titled it "Lindsay at Play". When I checked back, later that afternoon, it had had over a thousand hits! I was astonished.

Then I noticed its listing among "related videos" and discovered it was smack in the middle of ten videos about Lindsay Lohan. Not wanting our sweet dog in such company, my wife made me take it down. I recently reposted it with the subtitle, "How Lindsay Gets Burrs In Her Ears" and it gets no where near the attention.

I'm walking alone today, Lindsay accompanying me only in my thoughts. We are having family over for dinner tonight. However, my oldest daughter's son is allergic to dogs. His eyes swell, turn red and water painfully. So whenever they're coming over we have to board out Lindsay for the day and do a dramatic cleaning of the house. Both are difficult to do on week days when our employers actually expect us to turn up for work.

Fortunately for us, Nigel is only a couple of blocks away, is a former dog trainer for the Canadian Institute for the Blind, and loves to have Lindsay visit. He calls her "Monster" and Lindsay goes into paroxysms of delight when she sees him. So Lindsay will stay with him, out of the way for the evening.

I've been asked a couple of times about Lindsay's breed. Like Barack Obama she's a mutt. An English Springer Spaniel/English Setter mix. She is mostly Spaniel, but we don't give her the Spaniel cut and chose not to get her tail bobbed. As a result she has a beautiful tail, that, along with her ears, is a magnificent burr collector in the Fall.

We taught Lindsay to sit and lay-down and roll over; but most of what she knows she taught herself. She listens to us intently and it's astonishing the things she's picked up. When she was being irritable one evening, my wife got annoyed and told her, "Oh, Lindsay go to sleep!" And she did. We laughed, thinking it was just a coincidence; but no, Lindsay knew just what she was doing. And its become a handy little command to have in our tool kit.

Speaking of teaching dogs to "sit". When Lindsay was younger she was part of a dog walking group called Puppy Club. About twenty of us would gather with our dogs and take them for a run through the Rouge Valley on a Saturday morning. One woman was having problems with her dog and loudly and angrily ordered it to sit. Everyone of the twenty dogs promptly planted their bum on the pathway setting off a veritable earthquake of obedience. You probably felt the earth move where you live. Ubiquitous little command, that "Sit".

Anyway, thoughts of Lindsay as I finish my lonely walk. Lots more more to do before the family arrives. The weather forecast is for our first snow storm of the season tonight. Both our daughters live outside Toronto and won't drive if the weather is bad.

So I'm keeping my fingers crossed and looking forward to the day.