Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Tuesday, March 17, 2009 - 1 comment

My Faithful Shadow


It all started when we were babysitting our friends' dog for a few weeks in the fall. Every morning when we'd take him out to play, and every evening when we'd walk him, the same stray dog that lives in our area would come along for the fun. And knowing that there was a furry little playmate inside, she would wait impatiently at the door between appearances. It just so happened that the neighbour who had been feeding this dog moved away right then, and when we felt bad for her and started leaving her scraps outside, she became a permanent fixture on our front porch. When she stayed long after the puppy had gone and when the neighbours started congratulating us on our new dog, we knew we had a "situation." (Turks are happy to feed dogs on the street, but not so keen on them actually being pets, so we have a delicate balance to maintain if we are to keep up our good reputation.) :)

We named her Bag o' Bones, cuz that's pretty much what she was, and started calling her "Bobbie" for short. She was scrawny and pitiful, and while there was no way we were going to take a gross street dog inside, we didn't want a gross looking dog on our porch, either, so we figured we should start taking care of her. Worm meds helped the food stick to her bones and the nice little mat we put around the corner has been a feeble attempt to at least keep her off the front porch. I laughed when I came back from Christmas and found that my roommate had actually bought a pail of dog food and some biscuits! Now Bobbie is living in style!

Trouble is, you can't go anywhere on foot without Bobbie following you, which is mostly sweet but sometimes annoying. When I go to the waterfall to read, she accompanies me, and when I have a chai at the tea garden, she sits happily by my side. The bus driver's get a real kick out of the way she waits for the bus with me - except for the time she tried to get on! At first when she would follow me to the grocery store (and wait faithfully outside) or to Chicken Lady's for a lesson, I would try to pretend she wasn't mine and say things like, "Isn't this weird - she followed me all the way from home!" But then I started to feel guilty, like the cool kid who is nice to her nerdy friend when they are alone but disowns her in public. So I started owning up to the fact that she lives on our porch. Now she is known around town as "my caretaker." Even though I know she is too skittish to ever do anyone any harm, no one else knows that, and I do take comfort in the fact that no one will ever come near me as long as I am accompanied by my guard dog!



Bobbie making friends with a goat when we went for a walk.



She gets really excited when I pull out the camera.

1 comments:

I'm glad the word "keen" made it in this post. ( ;