Author: Elaine

Le Hobbit

As his winter project, Jack decided to catalog our books at LibraryThing. Not much to our surprise, we discovered that we have a lot of really odd books that had not yet been entered into the system.  However, we were surprised that our copy of BILBO LE HOBBIT had cover art which had not yet been uploaded to the system, despite some fifty editions of Tolkien’s book.  I bought that book when I was seventeen.  I have a vague memory that I bought it from a revolving rack in a Marseilles, France train station.  I was desperate for something to read, and figured that I knew the story well enough I could follow it with my rudimentary French.  I can still remember my astonishment when I discovered an English language bookstore my last day in Paris.  What a lost opportunity!

Lily and Orion

It was unseasonably warm here in Colorado today. I took Orion to play with my trainer’s rat terrier Cheney while I rode Lily in a lesson. I had planned to ride yesterday, but after longing Lily for a while, I didn’t see a horse I wanted to ride. (In middle-age, I’ve become a lot more conservative about when I get on a horse. Of course, the first four or five years I had Hap, I would have rarely ridden if I’d waited for him to calm down.) Today, although it was no warmer and even a little more windy, Lily was much calmer on the longe line, and almost perfect under saddle. She seems remember all the stuff we were working on last fall, although she is not quite as strong.

Afterward, my trainer and I took Cheney and Orion for a short walk. Cheney, who D got from the shelter at around 18 months of age, has issues and has apparently hated being taken for walks off her property with other dogs. D was hoping that Cheney would enjoy a walk if his best-friend-forever Orion was along. I was astonished when it worked. Orion trotted along cheerfully checking out everything he could find, and Cheney followed him almost as happily.

Puppy Class

Orion started out very intimidated by the store.  He wouldn’t follow me in on the lead, so I had to pick him up and carry his trembling body into the corner where class was held.  4PAWS Rescue had a bunch of dogs for placement in another part of the store, and he was flinching when the dogs in that area barked. 

Then he discovered that whatever we were doing involved food.  Life started looking up.  When he discovered that the nice lady in the middle of the class area had something called Bil-Jac Pet Treats, we had 100% of his attention.  He stopped trembling, stopped wanting to hide behind me or between my legs, and paid no attention to the dogs and noises in the rest of the store. 

He even played with the nice lady’s one year old Malamute after class.  Kodiak is a gorgeous dog, also a rescue, and managed to restrain his exuberance sufficiently that he was able to play with Orion without scaring him.

Orion received lots of complements on his cuteness.  And on the way out of the store, he wanted to visit with the other dogs, rather than acting shy of them.