When I go away for a few days and leave ma’dog Shayna at a kennel, I solicit a promise that she will be given ice cream every other day.
It doesn’t have to be expensive ice cream.
At Lori’s bath house I request human fragrances, like my after shave. It doesn’t have to be Armani Diamond perfume scent.
So, in my mind I’m not spoiling ma’dog. What prompts this column is a realization that Shayna is aging. She’s about 7-years-old, but frequently her naps are longer and her energy has slackened.
That’s not to say she doesn’t still run away (a sixth time recently) and she gets really excited and jumpy when she sees a cat. I don’t discourage her from that. I tell her cats taste like chicken.
But she’s started flopping down with a thud, as opposed to just curling up and lying down gently.
More and more often that dropping is in the middle of our family room floor, at the exact distance between three exiting doors. In other words, no matter where I want to go, she’s in my way.
And, I swear she always looks up slyly and smiles.
But this frequent napping has me wondering about her aging. So, I spend more time petting her, talking to her and giving her morsels from my table. Sometimes I don’t wait for the table, I just take a forkful of tuna salad and put it in her now-open mouth.
I try to lift the fork so the tuna sticks to the top of her mouth. It’s fun watching her maneuver her tongue to loosen the salad. It’s even more fun for me when I do that with peanut butter.
Shayna’s a 70-pound German Shepherd with a Husky’s blue eyes. They garner a lot of looks and smiles. I’m a 6?3?, 270-pounder who has difficulty getting up from the floor, and gets few smiles.
So, I’m sitting in my recliner watching sports on tv and look down and wonder about my aging animal. Enter a soft spot. I’ll lie down on the floor, head to head with Shayna, stroke her muzzle with one finger an call her Miss America.
She lies still as death. Occasionally I’ll see one eye open slightly. But for the most part she’s dormant, practically unmoving and seemingly unappreciative of my affection.
So, after a few minutes, I go back to my recliner. Pretty soon ma’dog will get up, come over and sidle up to me, lay her head on my thigh, look up at me and give the expression of thanks and love.
I know I’m reading way too much into this, so maybe it’s just the holiday time of year, but it’s such a nice feeling.
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I’ve heard Oxford High’s varsity football coach Bud Rowley yell, many times, ‘Put that helmet back on. We know how pretty you are!?
I think of that often watching the pros play. Whether they’re on the bench or on the field they want to be singled out. Since Billy Sims played for the Detroit Lions, there has been an increasing lack of humility.
When Sims scored a touchdown, and he scored many, he would hand the ball to the referee and trot off the field. A humble gentleman.
Nowadays a scorer will compete for the show-off title by creating a dance, posing for the endzone audience or doing several high-jump butt bumps.
When a lineman makes a tackle for a loss they often trot to an open spot on the field, that is within the lens shot of the television crew, beat their chests, stomp the ground or strut.
Humility, oh, humility, wherefore art thou?
Certainly not on the professional football playground.
Along that same line of egoism are the players who demand to have a number 1 jersey or they won’t sign for a college team. Seemingly every recruiter gives in to that demand, ’cause about every team has one.