LAKE ARROWHEAD STATE PARK, Texas — Never let it be said that we don’t cater — even in a perverse sort of way — to Toby the Puppy.
We arrived at this state park about a dozen miles south of Wichita Falls. It’s hot as hell out there … about 100 degrees.
The state park ranger in the office greeted me while my wife took Toby for a walk in the heat.
“We have a reservation,” I told her. She looked it up, found it and asked, “Do you want a pull through?” for your fifth wheel RV. I said yes.
“OK, I have two options. I can give you one site that has no shade but it quite lengthy or I can put you in another one. There’s a problem: It’s got a lot of prairie dogs.”
I thought about that one. I consulted then with my wife. We agreed. We wanted the site with no shade. Why? Because the prairie dogs would drive Toby nuts. He’d want to play with all of them.
We went to the unshaded RV site.
Should we have encamped among the prairie dogs? Some might say “yes.” We chose to save Toby the headache of being refused permission to scamper off to chase the little critters.
Therefore, we had the puppy’s best interest at heart. Meanwhile, we are baking in the hot sun.
Oh, the things we do for our little baby.
Mr. Kanelis,
We have two cats, now fifteen, who have roamed our back yard since they were not quite three months old.
They are slowing down, but the smaller, more “fierce”, and better hunter, recently struck.
I heard the persistent chirping of a squirrel outside one afternoon, when another was discovered dead on the carpet, next to the larger out our feline, who was looking at the corpse but was otherwise indifferent.
The “conventional wisdom” in our house is that Jesse’s small sister was “whodunnit”. The location of the creature implies that it made a fatal venture into our house – hence the persisent warnings previously cited.
Anyway, far more conventional wisdom is that cats should not be permitted to roam ue to the “risk”. I hasten to add that veteranarians of unknown sex and cats’ human roomates of known female persuasion seem to the “wise ones” with this opinion.
All in our family mostly agree that our kitty’s have had better lives as a result of our libertine risk-accepting policy (Mom has some misgivings but her daughter is much “colder” about it).
When (mostly feminine) anxiety is expressed about the whereabouts of any kitty, I try to reassure, usually without success, saying that “she’s A CAT” – nine lives and all that.
Anyway, your concern about your small pup (soon to be a still-small dog) seems to be much better founded vis-a-vis that rough prarie-dog-crowd, in their own habitat (and not suburbia, where our cats roam).
Still, I wonder if maybe Toby missed a Good Time.
Thanks for your story.