I don’t intend to pick on old dogs.  Really.  They just open themselves up to it and seeing as I have been on the receiving end of Lace’s brand of humor many times over the past 15 years I’m going to say “fair’s fair”.

We were heading back to the house after our walk today, Shaine, Lace and myself.  As walks go when a stir crazy 1 1/2 year old and a  plainly just crazy 15 year old are involved, it wasn’t all that eventful.  Lace actually managed to stay with us right up to the final stretch.  That’s when she found something incredibly smell-worthy beside the wood burner, did a sudden u-turn and planted her nose at the corner of it, oblivious to all else.  I managed to get her attention and motioned her toward the house, Shaine doing circles around me at the end of her leash.  I spun myself out of that, glanced over my shoulder to insure Lace was with us and headed off.

When we arrived on the deck there was no longer an old dog in the group.  I took Shaine into the house,  popping her into her crate before heading back out to find the Old Lady.  My guess was she had gone back to sniffing whatever had caught her nose earlier.  She can be very single minded at times.  Half way to the burner I saw her, standing behind a blue spruce, staring at it as though she expected it to move out of her way.  I called out to her and she cocked her head, looking up at the spruce with an expression that clearly asked, “Did you say something?”  I kid you not.

“She thinks it’s a person,” I muttered as I started walking toward her.  I waved my arm and called her again.  This time Lace peered around the spruce, gave me a quizzical, blurry-eyed look, looked back at the spruce, at me, then up at the spruce again but this time with a sudden air of suspicion.  Then she side-stepped around the tree and came trotting in, not without a look or two over her shoulder, I’m guessing to insure herself the oddly costumed person standing in the back yard wasn’t following.