Breakfast in bed for Belle the dog

This is Belle. Belle is a mixed-breed dog, probably part Lab, part hound and who knows what else. We think that Belle is about 17-years-old. She has has belonged to our daughter Elysa since she came home, a fuzzy, bouncing puppy with endless energy. As a pup, she would fly through the air in a beautiful arc, paws out, to pounce on rats in the yard, which she would dispatch with extreme prejudice. She was part ballerina, part wolf.

She was a member of our assorted pack of immunized, loved, free-range dogs which grew and then contracted with time. At its peak there were five, one of whom was her brother Ajax, a black and tan who looked houndish and had Belle’s sweet disposition.

Over the years time took them. About two years ago, Ajax went into the woods and never returned. He was full of energy when he left, not frail, so I suspect some misadventure took him. I hope that his death was as noble as he. We could not bury him, but I suspect that the forest he patrolled did so with as much love as we could have ourselves.

Belle, with difficulty hearing and seeing, has a nose that remains astute and seems to trigger a deep memory of the paths around our hilltop house and property. She walks the same paths as the pack did. And sometimes, during the day, she stands near the woods as if expecting their return.

Her tail wags when she sees us. She does a little dance, bouncing from left front paw to right front paw with aged joy. She seems slow but is quick enough to drive the utility cats away from her food, and to growl gently at the new pups which have come to live here of late. (Pups who have learned to give her the respect of her advanced years, and rarely try to take her food; and who rub their muzzles against her as if she were their grandmother, who promises them a switch if they don’t behave and tame their adolescent antics.)

Belle prefers to be outside. There is a heat lamp on the porch but she sleeps only on the periphery of it. She seems uncomfortable with such new-fangled ideas, creature of nature that she is.

In the morning I can find her in a pile of leaves where the sun is shining most directly. This is where, many days, I take her breakfast in bed which she devours with the surprising appetite of we sometimes see in aged, but joyous, humans.

I give her dinner on the concrete steps of the porch.

Belle is a treasure, and as much a part of the landscape and the house as the rocks, trees and brooks that surround us.

I have to feed her now.

Dark is falling and room service is calling.

Edwin