No Spring Chickens

Today, someone asked Gretchen how old I was. She said I was three and a half and all of the sudden it hit me — I’m getting older. Soon (in February) I’ll be four and in dog years, that means I’m officially an adult.

Wow…where did the time go?

And then I started looking around at all my friends. They’re getting older, too. Some of them are already older than I am, but I hadn’t really noticed until today when it became clear to me we’re all slowing down a bit.

Well, not all of us, but still, we’re no spring chickens.

While not my oldest friend, though one of friends for the longest times, Monty is going to be eight years old in December (Christmas Day) and I’m definitely seeing him slowing down. In fact right now as I type, he’s sacked out on the floor making little snoring noises. Of course, he had a big day. We went for a long walk down to the lake and up through the parks where I showed him how I could still launch myself into the crux of a tree (like I did yesterday). He was impressed.

“I’m too old to do that!” Monty told me and I realized that five years is a big difference in our ages. Still, he keeps up with me pretty well.

Oshi is older than me, but Perrito is younger. Oshi though acts like he’s an ancient old man while Perrito races and scurries around in a very youthful manner. Not today, of course, because Gretchen had them up on the bench in the sun and both of them soaked it up!

Rosie is also older than I am, but not as old as Monty. Still, I’ve noticed that she has a much grayer muzzle in person (in dog?) than she does from the photographs. But don’t let the gray fool you. We played at the tennis courts today and she was ready to go for a full on romp, but I was under strict orders to be on my best behavior.

While I’m really glad I finally get to hang out with Rosie, it means that I don’t get my mid-day nap. Monty got one, but then we leashed him up for another outing and this time, we played with the youngsters.

We picked up Saber, the youngest dog we walked, and he was raring to go! To burn off some steam, we headed to the tennis courts and not only were they surprisingly open (no tennis players), Kona was there! Let the puppy games begin!

The puppies — Kona and Saber — hit if off. Ah youth…I remember those days!

As you can see, they became fast friends and rolled around, like only puppies can do, gently nibbling on each other.

Kona kept putting her arm around Saber (something that Saber is known for) and then looking to her Dad as if to say, “Can we keep him? Can we take him home?”

Saber, who is game for anything responded, “Yeah, I can come to your house and then you can come to mine and we can have sleepovers and share our beds and knock things off the coffee table with our tails and…”

I had to put a stop to Saber’s exuberance. “Buddy, give the girl a chance to get a word in edge-wise.”

Then we all hung out with Kona’s Dad because he was really nice and he had really tasty treats in his pockets!

Then we did what we love to do — played fetch in the sun, stood up on the bench (Monty did!), and enjoyed the sunshine!

After our romp, we went for a walk to cool down some and get some water from the pea patch at the top of the big hill. The sun was bright and while we posed obediently, squinting into the sun, Monty (the older and wiser) finally got up and moved to a shady spot with the sun behind him!

He’s such a rebel in his old age!

Before we left the gardens, though, I had great take one more photo because to me, it marked the end of summer (Autumnal Equinox tomorrow).

Beautiful, eh? Until tomorrow,

Rubin