Instructions on Life from a rescue named Maisie
A few weeks ago, when I was having a particularly rough morning all on my own (without any help from Maisie) we encountered another dog on our morning walk. We were on a section of the trail that stretches long and straight, with a decent site line, and I could see the dog from pretty …
There is a heaviness in the air as my husband and I get out of the truck and make our way up the front walk, but the minute we open the door, Maisie is there, tail wagging, up on her hind legs, her tiny front feet pawing the air and then landing on my legs. Even …
The date came and went, with barely a blip on the radar. My husband took her around the park and I managed to get myself out for a two block walk, but other than that, Maisie’s year anniversary with us was dramatically uneventful. That was not how I had planned things to be. At the …
Continue reading "Here’s to a Year With Little Miss Sunshine"
It’s 14 degrees with a wind chill of half that and there is at least a foot of untracked, new snow in the meadow. In spite of this fact, I have my mitten off and a piece of chicken gizzard in my bare hand, and I am down on one knee, waiting to reward Maisie, …
Continue reading "Maisie the Omnivore’s Nonexistent Dilemma"
I am up on the meadow with Maisie, just at the top of the hill, right where the path starts winding in a graceful curve to gradually make its way back down. The sun is shining and it is unseasonably warm, in the upper 30s, but the wind is gusting, blowing hard and fast, and …
Maisie is having a particularly bad hair day. She is in desperate need of a haircut, something to which I hadn’t given much thought, mostly because I am thoroughly charmed by her shaggy, disheveled ears. Most mornings, she looks a bit like a washed-up starlet, lazily lifting her head without actually moving the rest of …
The day I met Maisie, she was alone in her kennel at the shelter, even though she had a roommate and partner-in-crime named Jerry. But the day I met her, Jerry was being neutered, his adoption pending. I never did get to meet Jerry and sometimes, if I think about it too much, it breaks …
Maisie and her friend Lily both wear the same fantastic kohl eyeliner, dramatic and sweeping, dark and bold, like twin Egyptian princesses. We, their owners, wonder if they are somehow related because not only do they wear the same eyeliner, they are also about the same size, with similar coloring and markings. Lily is a rich …
My husband and I are getting ready to leave the house to go to a concert in Iowa City. Since this means a two and a half hour round trip on top of the concert itself, we will be gone for the bulk of the evening. It is the longest we have left Maisie on …
Barks at Strangers 