Today Is The 10th Birthday of My Dog Ida
Here are some photos of her.
Today is November 5. It is the 10th birthday of my dog Ida.
Ida is a black greyhound with a grey face and very long legs. This was her face when I told her that she had just turned 66 in dog years.
It is the face that she makes whenever I am talking to her and not using the words ‘walk’, ‘cheese’, ‘treat’ or ‘dinner’. I think this is a face that says: “I do not know what you are talking about, but I am glad that I live in the same house as you.”
Ida used to race. She was not very good at it. She raced for two years, and then she retired, and had a litter of puppies. Many years later, my partner and I were talking about what kind of dog that we would like. We decided that we would like a dog that is kind, gentle, and likes the things that we like: snoozing, going for walks, and snoozing some more.
About two weeks later, we met Ida, who is kind, gentle, and likes the things that we like, chiefly snoozing.
When Ida sleeps for a long time, her tongue hangs out of her mouth. It looks like this:
Ida likes going in the car.
Sometimes when she’s in the car, she makes this face:
Most of the time, however, Ida looks extremely regal.
Take a look, for instance, at this photograph, which I decided made her look like a short story author from Connecticut, who has published a few well-liked but commercially unsuccessful books:
Ida loves to zoomie. Lots of greyhounds love to do this. It involves running extremely fast in a circle for a very short period of time.
Because Ida is quite old, once she zoomied too hard and hurt her paw a little. It made her sad, but she got lots of peanut butter — her favourite food — and then she was happy again.
I love Ida very much. I am happy that she is my friend.
Please feel free to celebrate her birthday in the manner she would most appreciate: by eating peanut butter, snoozing, and being nice to your friends.