The adventures of Misty

 Scrappy was a dog that lent himself to adventures that made blog worthy posts, Misty not so much.  Misty has a more subtle thing going on, harder to catch on camera, especially now with it just cold enough to make my camera battery shrink and my camera continually asking me to "Use a battery made for this camera".  But let me tell you some Misty stories.

Scrappy had one way to wake me up on the weekend:  flop into the crook of my arm, lay his head down on my face with one eye right on MY eye ("the Baby Eye"), and wait for me to move.  Misty? Well...

Sometimes she starts off by licking my hand, maybe rolling on her back a bit, standing up to shake.  That's the easy way.

She has at times pushed my head off my pillows and my blanket off my body.

Today, it was on her back, butt in my face, wiggling around.  Followed by jumping off the bed, and using her front paws to drag my leg out from the covers and off the bed.

So I sleepily get down on the floor to put my pants on.  Which gets interrupted by her rubbing me like a cat to get her back scratched.  This in turn causes head to go down, butt to go up, and a twisting motion which ends with her on her back wanting her belly scratched.  Followed by getting up and barking at me because I'm taking 'too long' to get my pants on.

Next comes getting ready for a morning walk.  Misty is very vocal (read: noisy) as I get shoes, etc, around, and when I hush her (which works about 35% of the time), she gets frustrated.  So she eats.  Gets a mouthful of food, grumbling as she does so.  Sometimes throwing in a stretch with a low "ROOOO" that sounds more like a Scrappy bay than her usual.  I've almost gotten her to the point that when I get her bungee leash, she'll sit quietly while I get it put on the both of us.  From that point to the door, though...

The walk itself is like specifically designed for a man of my age and health: straight ahead, no pauses, about two paces faster than I would like.  And where Scrappy would examine pee spots, bunny trails, dead bodies, discarded food, and any hole in the ground- the longer abandoned, the better- Misty stops for only one of those- pee spots.  Two examples:  One, she is the only dog I've ever seen that will pee in the front yard, go around back long enough to poop (or look for bunnies), and stop to smell her own pee spot on the way back.  Two, there is currently a dead mouse (or small mole) right in the middle of the trail to the soccer fields.  Scrappy would have sniffed it, perhaps even peed on it.  Misty has shot over it three times in two days without a backwards glance.

Speaking of the three walks in two days, the next poop she takes almost has to contain brain matter.  8 stops to dump in 24 hours is a record even by her standards.

As we took our walk today, I thought about Scrappy's love of exploring.  We used to go down every seeming trail in the brush, up and down embankments, always looking for something new.  Misty is very content with straight ahead.  And to be honest, as Scrappy's physical ability to do all that clambering around faded, so did mine.  This is not to say that Misty COULDN'T manage it.  Let me tell you a story from last night.

There is a tongue of woods that sticks out into the soccer fields.  Beside the rotten trunk of a fallen tree, there is a trail that cuts through that, which Scrappy and I often used from the north to get to the Duck Pond.  Me and Misty, not so much, and it is pretty overgrown.  You can't see it at all from the north side, and have to know what to look for from the south.  But Misty can find it, no problem.  In fact, last night we were coming from the south, and I was waiting to see if she would take it.  I saw a place that I thought was the entrance, and she walked right past.  "You missed your trail", I told her; she looked over her shoulder with a "You think so, huh?" look on her face.  Ten feet later, she turned down the right spot.

A few days ago, we found a couple more lacrosse balls on our walk.  You should have seen the pride she had the next morning, tossing one of them around while Laurie watched.

Speaking of mornings, I called in sick last Thursday.  Normal morning procedure is me leaving for work, then Laurie taking her outside for first pee.  That morning, I was on the couch bundled up after calling in, when Laurie asked if she needed to go and got up to grab her jacket.  You could see the gears turning in Misty's head as she stood there, looked at Laurie, looked at me, looked at Laurie, looked at me, decided, "Oh, Daddy's staying home", and jumped up on my lap.

I've also noticed that, if we take a longer walk (or say two of 'em, like yesterday) she burns herself out so much she gets "confused".  About an hour after our second walk yesterday, I got down on the floor to see if she wanted to play or cuddle.  She went to her toy box and got her favorite toy, came to me and played tug, I got it and threw it over by the door.  She looked at me, looked at it.  Went to the toy box, got her second favorite toy, stopped about halfway to me, dropped it.  Looked at me for a moment, then went and got toy #1.  Tugged for a bit, let me throw it again.  Went and got it, dropped it by toy #2, jumped up on the chair and looked at me.

Finally, shower procedure.  As I go up, she follows, barking and nipping, racing to the top of the stairs.  Bugs me as I get undressed.  When I head for the bathroom, she follows, barking, demanding to be chased.  Runs down the stairs full speed, then back up, into the bedroom, flying to a slamming halt on the bed, sailing back down, down the stairs, rinse, wring, do again.  Breaks into the bathroom when I shut the door, challenging me to chase some more.  How she hasn't broke a leg, I'll never understand.  My mattress, already weakened by Scrappy's struggles before he passed, now that, she's gotten a fairly sizeable hole broken in one side.  Mind you, we are talking about a bed on a high frame, that I stupidly bought a tall box spring for and now we both need to step up on a futon that used to be my sons to even get up on the thing.  And trust me, in three steps she can go from the top step, fly over the futon, spin in the air, and land back feet first on the mattress.

Now, you go ahead and try to get that on camera.  But be careful, I might be naked...