Only a Couple Fetches

January 9, 2010.  Saturday.

Situation:  Moi and I both work tonight.   She goes out in the early afternoon to give a lesson, and I take advantage of her absence to work loudly in the music room, but I quit before she comes back and decide to take Mway for a walk a little early today, around 2:30.   When I go upstairs to put on my walking clothes, I see her lying on the floor as I pass Moi’s bedroom.  She is lying there with her eyes open, as if she’s just been waiting there for this moment to happen.   Sure enough when I go back downstairs to put on my snow suit, she comes creeping down the stairs and soon enough is circling the kitchen table and huffing with excitement.

State of the Path:  The condition of the path is pretty much the same as yesterday, requiring shuffling feet.   Because I have gone out a little early, I decide to take the side path along the old orchard.  Mway has run way ahead down near the wigwams, but she turns back and follows me when she’s seen that I have turned.  There are none of my, Moi’s, or Mway prints on the side path, but there are a lot of rabbit prints – indeed, I remark how the rabbits particularly utilize the path that we have made for ourselves, although there are plenty of rabbit prints running off the path too.  When we come to where the side path goes into the pressed down brambles, Mway is not happy about this.  She hesitates and has to lift her paws carefully not to step on a thorn.

State of the Creek.  The ice on the creek is pretty much the same as it was yesterday.  At one point, where the ice covers the full width of the stream, I note how it is banded, with strips of snow at the banks, strips of gray ice next to that, then in the middle a strip of transparent ice revealing the brown of the water.  Wherever there is snow on the ice, there are also rabbits prints, something you didn’t see yesterday.   The only sound from the creek is coming from the cascade underneath the big oak at the midpoint of the path along the creek.  I also hear two different kinds of birds – sparrows, finches, catbirds? -- but I can’t see any birds when I look up into the trees.  I also take the side path along the skating pond.  The feed channel is fairly easy to negotiate, as the ice in it is solid (also covered with rabbit prints) and I can conveniently set my foot on top of it to cross.

The Fetch.  I go to the upper end of the clearing and throw the stick toward the electric pole.  Mway runs after it, brings it back, and drops it about two feet from my feet.  As I usually do when she does not bring it real close to me, I scold her “Bring it here” and point at my feet.  She picks the stick up, with a huff of exasperation, and throws it at my feet.  I throw the stick again toward the electric pole.  She runs after it, brings it back, drops it, not quite as closely as I’d like, but I make no issue about it this time, and step up to it, then throw it again.  She runs after it, and comes running back, then goes running past me, up through the path back toward the house.  I don’t know what it is:  Mway is not fetching the stick as many times as she usually does.  It’s not her paw, because she hasn’t been limping.  I’m a little disappointed, but if she doesn’t want to fetch much, it’s no skin off my nose.  Up at the house, she is standing at the door, waiting to go in.  But I don’t see the stick on the floor in front of the door.  “Where’s the stick?  Find the stick!” I yell, and she nervously runs to the end of the porch to show me that it is there.