Since my sister Sue and her family are, for the next 5-6 months, going to be displaced persons (by choice - building a new home - not by hurricane, thank goodness) and have just moved into a temporary townhouse while the new house is under construction, we've been sharing time with their beautiful Golden Retriever, Abbie. Abbie is familiar with our house and now with the new fence we can let her roam out back all day long. With her First Family vacationing in upstate NY this weekend, here's a glimpse of How Abbie Spent Her Labor Day Weekend.
Like most Golden's, Abbie is high energy and can literally spend HOURS chasing after a ball or frisbee if she can find a human dumb enough to throw one to her for that long. She had lots of exercise this weekend, having had TWO such dumb humans around to guilt into playing with her every time she bats those big brown eyes at us or sighs heavily. I have to say, she's damn good at her "job" and can catch a ball on a high bounce, where all 4 paws leave the ground, and sometimes if you aim well with a lofting throw, she'll catch it in mid-air, the ball never touching the ground. Then she trots around the yard, strutting her stuff.
Abbie also showed us a trick we didn't know she could do - actually burying a bone in the yard, or more specifically, in my mother's flower beds (with the lack of rain, the flowers are half dead anyway by now). Mom gave her a big rawhide bone on Saturday to entertain her; the next thing you know, Mom saw a big, fresh pile of dirt in one of the flowerbeds, and when she poked at it, there was the bone, completely covered. So, she took it out and rinsed it off. Ten minutes later - it had been buried AGAIN in another spot up against the house. Rinsed off again. Then buried for the third time (see photos of the guilty look on Abbie's face). Must be instinctual with this breed of dog - we owned other breeds (poodle and Sheltie) that never did this. I later checked with my sister and she says Abbie has always done this - but their older, now deceased Golden, Casey, hardly ever did this. We got a kick out of it... and during a period of time when I confiscated the offending bone you'd think I was sticking the dog with pointy objects, she looked SO pained about it!
In the evenings, from around 8pm to around 11pm, it's her "dog-tired" time: she zonks out completely, like her batteries just ran out of juice. Then she gets her second wind and wants to play again just as the humans want to go to bed!
I spoiled her rotten the entire weekend... for me it was like "doggie therapy" and was a much needed stress-reducer. Now that she's gone home with her "First Family" (we're only the back-up crew and she's like our "loaner dog") I even kind of miss her and keep expecting her to come nosing into my room, nudging me under the elbow as I try to type at my laptop.
But I probably won't have to miss her for very for long. School starts tomorrow and my sister, a first-grade teacher, and my niece will both be away from home all day now. If Abbie seems to be sad or depressed at being alone all day in their temporary digs we may try keeping her with us on weekdays because either I or my mom are home nearly all day, every day. Some dogs just need more attention than others, and although Abbie stayed home alone all day in their old house, with all the uprooting and college students off to school, the poor animal doesn't know whether she's coming or going. At least being here a few days a week and having the yard to roam in would be a familiar comfort.
We'll see how it goes. My mother has been considering getting a new dog of her own - if the defective fence stays up and hopefully gets fixed or replaced (see new photos of the terrible sub-standard fencing that was installed so quickly we didn't have time to notice all the defects until the job was done - but not completely paid for, which is called LEVERAGE) so before I know it we could have a full-time dog around here and a "cousin" for Abbie when she comes to visit.
