ManicDDaily

I sometimes think that if I truly wanted fame and fortune, I would start a blog called “Pearlmydarling,” and focus on my fifteen-year-old dog.

Why do people love dogs so much?  There’s a huge variety of answers probably starting with “because they (dogs) deserve it.”  But the facts are also that (i) we love that that we truly take care of; and (ii) we love that which loves us back.

Pearl is, more or less, a loving-back dog.  I mean, yes, she has, despite an absolute hatred of water, plunged into roaring streams and frigid lakes to catch up to us (when we were canoeing or taking a brief dip).

She definitely wants to share our bed.

And dinner.  (She doesn’t mind our germs at all.)

But she’s also very much her own dog.  Meaning that she’ll plunge into frigid streams and all that, but don’t expect her to sit quietly next to you if there’s food happening in the next room.

Pearl is, if not exactly a role model, a survivor.  I won’t go into the mouse poison incident, or the dognapping, or this summer’s semi-paralysis,  but just say that she knows very well how to negotiate her world.  As a puppy, she quickly cottoned onto the fact that she wasn’t going to power her way into treats (not top dog) and developed three alternative tools: (i) cuteness; (ii) persistent cuteness; (iii) persistence without that much cuteness.   (These are, unfortunately, often the tools of creatures in dependent positions.)

I have sometimes thought that she is not super-smart–I’m not sure how well she could figure out a maze, for example, especially in the absence of steak.  She, however, always begs to differ.

PS – I enclose a video of Pearl, which doesn’t do her justice.  I don’t have an actual video camera, and she really is fifteen and nearly blind so I didn’t want to derange her too much.  But–a first try- and I hope, sort of fun.