A Bit of Canine Trauma

Up until five o’clock tea time yesterday, there were two dogs at knipetowers. Now, unfortunately, there’s only one. The old veteran matriarch, Tammy had to be put to sleep and that was the end of that.

She’d been definable as “geriatric” for about two years and, gradually and bit by it, she lost most of her hearing and eyesight and, eventually, her bearings, and would stand in one place, indecisive until encouraged in a particular direction.

So, at tea time today, when superdawg had his daily scoff, the same rituals took place. These rituals were instigated some eleven or so years ago to prevent conflict between the two pooches at teatime. Bruno – driven almost entirely by the search for food, more food, snacks and steals, would push his way into Tammy’s dish and receive a severe and noisy punishment from the old dog. After a short while, it seemed that Tammy was eating deliberately slowly in order to ambush the pup and have yet another opportunity to put him in his place. The strategy we adopted was to throw a handful of doggiebix down the hallway for Bruno to hunt and catch – thus distracting him from Tammy’s dish, and, in turn, foiling Tammy’s evil machinations.

After a turn around the back yard, Bruno would check Tammy’s now empty dish.

Now Tammy has gone, but Bruno still has the same routine – biccies down the hallway, back yard, check Tammy’s dish. I suppose he’ll always do that.

The next Knipe pooch will arrive whenever it becomes time to retire Bruno from the hills. He seems to have a lot of energy still in him, though. He’s a little bit slower and his attempts at big stiles sometimes fail, but he’s got a fair amount of time to go, I think.

Ah, well, never mind. Poor Tammy.