O.K. this is an old subject for so many of us. I don't have a picture of Lola to head this because my new computer has prissily sent my picture files elsewhere because I didn't label them. You'll have to imagine a very small dachshund, still with a waist, a double silver dapple, ( a mix of black and white spots) and one blue eye and one brown eye. Unlike her owner, she still attracts attention.
She is totally devoted to her humans and is overly social so sometimes when we have guests she particularly loves I tell her to get in her kennel and cool down. "Get packed!"
At eleven years old she is still sparky and loves our daily walks. She looks between Andy and me to see that we are really going somewhere, and then she's off! Today we walked along the edges of the fields and then took a cow path through the palmettos. Lola is so small she avoids the spider webs and can scramble under the underbrush. Like all of her breed she's stubborn so when she ferrets out an armadillo she really wants to bark at it endlessly and she won't get with the program of just taking the walk, unless I speak to her severely.
When we come out into the pasture with the long grass Lola likes to scrunch down and hide and she's totally invisible. The game is that we call her and There she is! She lopes along, soft ears flying, nose to the wind, short legs pumping.
She came to us as a six weeks old puppy we immediately fell in love with. The first night we put her in the kennel in our bed room and there was much whining, so pitiful. "If I had wanted to sleep with a dog I would have married one," my husband said. Ten minutes later he relented and Lola quietly and comfortably settled down under his chin like a small loaf of warm bread. And she's been our bed every night since. In cold weather we appreciate how dogs run hot and in the summer we grumble.
I took Lola to work with me every day for the first years of her life and the kids in my school really socialized her. Now, she's mostly here on the ranch and has complete access to the outdoors. I spent many hours teaching her to be a good dog while I stood out there in rain and iffy weather. In town, I spent a lot of energy teaching her how to walk on a leash, well worth the effort. And, horrors! we spent lots of time in the dog parks where Lola learned that the part for small dogs was really O.K.
We had another dog before Lola but I had tons of kids in my face, no time and no energy to spare to carefully train an animal. That dog was lovely to us, but I regret my lack of caring.
So we now have this eleven year old dog who is still young and she is still funny and such a big part of our routine. In the mornings she nags us until we get up from the table and sink into the couch to read the papers. She hops up to warm my husband's hip. Then she wants to go out on the front porch to get the sun rays and she lies there, a small spotty burrito next to the door in the sunshine. After lunch she comes into the kitchen to tell me that It Is Now Time for Molly to lie down and read for an hour because I, Lola, will take a nap on whatever sofa Molly has chosen.
After dinner, Lola is again warming Andy's hip and thinking that soon, soon! she'll go out to pee and then we'll lift her onto our high bed and she can burrough down under the covers, warming up the bed until we come.
A dog's life, so simple and comical.
We Americans love our dogs, large and small. We stroke their wonderful fur and put up with their nonsense. These are the creatures who love us unconditionally and they make us happy.
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