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Slow Down, Bisou!

By Eulalia Benejam Cobb

I know you think you have wings, Bisou, but you don\’t, so please slow down.

I have watched you a million times: no sooner does an idea hit you–there\’s a toy on the bed–than bam! you\’re there—feet on pillows, toy in mouth. There\’s a bird on the lawn! Whoosh, you\’re on it—except oops! there\’s the sliding door. For you, there is no interval between “here” and “there.” Nor is there any danger.

Today, we had just finished watching your father on UTube place 10th on the 2009 AKC Agility Invitational. Watching him jump on and off and over stuff and generally throw himself about at top speed was not much different from an afternoon at home with you, Bisou.

As we were getting ready for our nap, you kept jumping off the bed, and when I said “Do you want to go outside?” you took off down the hall so fast that you slid around the corner and plummeted down our entire steep flight of steps…and disappeared.

I ran after you, imagining the worst, and found you sitting by the back door, wagging your tail and looking intense. You needed to go out, and fast! You didn\’t seem broken in body or spirit or anything else. Back in the house, I said to myself, “she won\’t want to go near those steps for a while,” and prepared to carry you. But no, you sprinted upstairs as if nothing had happened, and we had our daily snooze.

Your breeder tells me it is not for nothing that your mother\’s name is “Fling.”

At the moment, you\’re zonked out on a sheepskin, stretched next to my body as I type on the sofa by the wood stove, the very picture of a “comfort spaniel,” as Cavaliers were referred to in a quainter age. But the minute I close my laptop, watch out! You\’ll fling yourself off the sofa, and hurl yourself at the back door. Attention, Bisou! Doucement!

4 Responses

  1. i do love that hell-bent-for-leather attitude. riley has it too.this kind of dog doesn't indulge hovering mamas.and don't you love how ideas DO hit dogs? i am always amazed, even still, when one of the dogs suddenly sits up and decides to do something. get a puffy toy, or whatever. where do those come from? how do they manifest themselves in a dog?

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