Holden may be old--well, he is old--but that doesn't mean he's not willing to go one-on-one with a peanut butter jar.
He starts slowly, not aiming for the bottom quite yet.
Acupuncture needles, to be precise. The poor old dog's rear legs are so weak he has trouble getting up and even difficulty walking straight, so in addition to pain pills and lots of other stuff, we're trying, on the advice of our vet, acupuncture.
He awakens.
That title is sure to incite debate among the many people who own dogs they consider the greatest, but for me, Holden is, has been, and always will be the world's greatest dog. Today, he and his siblings, Shibori and Pixil, turned 14.
What cruel rejection is this, that Fur Holden, a creature born of the mighty dog himself, should suffer such willful inattention at the hands of his creator.
That's a rule when snow-pocalypse hits the Research Triangle area. I slept all day and couldn't be happier for having done so.
How bad is it? Here at the house, we are buried under what might be as much as two or three inches of snow and ice. Northerners, feel free to laugh; we deserve it. (On the serious side, the ice is the issue.)
The view out the front door at a bit after six is gray and white.
As this picture shows, Holden lives in both the light and the dark, and he sees both in 2017.
He was and remains the world's cutest dog.
Holden's sister, Pixil, is spending a few nights with us while her owner, Gina, is out of town. Pixil is a planner, a hound who's always playing for the main chance. She also is supremely adept at cranking up her brother just because she can. Combine that with a willingness to bark at a shadow of a leaf, and you have a recipe for barking beyond all reason.
Tonight, for example, Holden was working on a bone in the den while Pixil was, as usual, stretched out in her guest crate on watch for Gina.
Holden coughed a bit on the bone.
Pixil barked to sound the alert: something must be amiss!
Holden ran to join her and began barking, too.
Pixil grew agitated--Holden has confirmed the threat!--and barked louder.
The two of them fed on each other's barks and through the power of their barking turned away whatever threat was menacing us.
And so the barking cycle begins anew.
For no reason I could fathom, one evening not long ago, Holden decided that everyone in our den was a threat to one of his bones. Having reached that decision, he leapt into action to defend the bone.
First, he tried distracting us all by moving his head and tail so quickly that they became blurry.
MarkP asked for a few shots of the outside world, so for the first time since I arrived home Thursday night, I braved the outdoors. I didn't go out until late in the afternoon on Sunday, so a lot of the snow and ice had melted by then; sorry about that, Mark.
Here's Holden sniffing some plants near our front door.
how do you choose among them?
If you're Holden, the world's greatest dog, the answer is simple:
You eschew them all for the sleek and cool wood floor.
At a time when we should all be celebrating the beauty of fall and giving thanks for all we have, the Cone Man is doing none of those things. Instead, he's plotting world conquest once again, this time with his latest henchthing, the metal dragon.
Holden was without several of his people last week, so he made his bored displeasure known.
He began with your basic boredom pose.
One night, standing near the diabolical Cone Man,
summons Holden faster than any dog whistle or command ever could.
After verifying he cannot simply reach up and take the lovely strips, because even he won't do that when humans are actually watching the plate, Holden begins his various approaches.
First, he tries a speed run around the kitchen island.
If there's any more snow, I'm packing up and heading out, as Holden nearly did in the recent storm.
you have to contemplate it, study it, plan your attack--and, of course, protect it.
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