Category: Sparky (Page 12 of 18)

Sparky’s self-support in evaluating and addressing his own emotional needs, is admirable.

Late last night, a big thunderstorm came through.  It was enough to wake me up and notice the bright lightning.  I heard Sparky licking his chops and smacking his lips, like Moms Mabley.  That’s typical, so I went back to sleep.

This morning, I found him sleeping in my closet.  Sparky has never done this before, and there is no concern that he will want to sleep with my dirty laundry every night.  He is such an adorable little pup, I’m happy that he has a refuge from thunderstorms.

After we had breakfast, I explained that the tower for the high-voltage power lines would act to neutralize much of the electrical potential between the ground and the storm clouds.  If there was a lightning strike, it would hit the 100 ft tower or the cable running along the tops of the towers.  We had little to fear from lightning.

Sparky took umbrage at my suggestion that he was afraid of thunderstorms.  He reminded me that, just yesterday, he had barked ferociously while running down a rabbit.  Nature was no threat to him. 

Sparky said that he was afraid that I might be startled by the thunder, roll out of bed, and squash him flat.  I let him know that if he was calling me fat, we could cut out the fortnightly rotisserie chicken.  Sparky changed the subject by asking if we could invent rotisserie rabbit.

Sparky thinks he is a mighty hunter.  He really just likes chasing rabbits.  Sparky is my little Nimrod because he can be clueless.

I spotted a rabbit, and released the hound.  Sparky chased the rabbit over the hill and into the bush.  He barks his ass off during the pursuit, but stops barking when his leash gets caught up in the trees.  Sparky was in dense brush, so it took me an hour of driving around in the quad and bushwhacking, to find him. 

I had walked within 10 feet of him, calling his name, but he hadn’t said a word.  Sparky sat there, so tangled up, he couldn’t move 6 inches, secure in the knowledge that I’d find and save him. When I did find him, Sparky was certain that he still had a shot at the rabbit.

Again, it took me an hour, crashing through brush and calling his name, for me to get to my dog.  When we got back to the house, Sparky was smiling like a lunatic because the chase went so well.

Sparky is so well-mannered and serene, it’s probably impossible to train him to bark on command.  He loves chasing rabbits, and there are plenty of them, so I’m not going to deny him that joy.  There has to be some technology to help me find my little Nimrod.

Poor Sparky.  The sand man is beating him to death.

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Sparky has to solve a puzzle.

As we left Maumee Bay State Park this morning, Sparky was in a mood.

Sparky is too low in the seat to be looking out the window.  He doesn’t look out the window very often, but when he does, his front paws are up on the arm rest.

When Sparky heard the click from my phone, he looked my way.  There is no joy in that mug.  If he was a girlfriend, he’d be ‘fine’ in that bad way.

The body language was enough for me to know he didn’t want to talk about it.  I can only speculate.

Sparky really liked Maumee.  There were quite a few rabbits, some deer and plenty of brush for him to burrow into.  We left at 8 am, so that’s kind of early in the day to be pessimistic about never coming back.

Around 5 am, a big storm blew in.  Sparky says he’s not afraid of storms, but does go on high alert.  It was enough to wake me up, and since I wasn’t going to go back to sleep, I made some breakfast and started packing up.  Maybe he was just grumpy from not getting enough sleep.

Sparky didn’t sleep in the car, so maybe he’s like me.  When we’re up, we’re up.  I gave him some space, and by the time we got to the turnpike, he was feeling better.

For once, Sparky listened to me when I told him that I see a rabbit.  I let him off the leash to chase it.  He ran into the woods, and barked occasionally to let me know it was going well.  Sparky was never in any danger of catching it. 

This was an experiment because, in the past, Sparky has gotten out of the house and gone on a walkabout.  For the last few months, he’s been good about coming when called, and I’ve been testing him off the leash.  When I do yard work, he comes out on his brush anchor.  If he wanders too far away, I call him, and he comes back.  It doesn’t take him long to figure how far he can go.  Sparky likes being outside and is good about chasing the quad when I go to the next tree or wood pile.

Sparky can get oblivious when he’s huffing an interesting scent trail.  When he was chasing the rabbit, he came back when called.  We aren’t going to repeat this experiment very often, but we’ve got rabbits so Sparky may as well run them down.

I don’t know, maybe it’s because Sparky’s cousin Ozzie just passed away, but I want Sparky to live his best life.  When a storm is coming and Sparky isn’t feeling very confident, we reminisce about the time he almost caught a rabbit, and that always raises his spirits.