Little Bear and I have a game I call “Go Around.” Ian has seen this game and could testify that it can have me laughing so hard I can barely stay upright, when I’m in the right mood and LB is at his goofiest.
LB is tethered to the Lair at pretty much all times. In summer he spends a lot of time under the Lair where it’s cool, and the Lair is held up by nine concrete posts. The tether is long enough to wrap around three of those posts – four if he really stretches. So he can go under the cabin any time he wants, but he often can’t get back out without help. I got tired of climbing under and trying to drag a resisting #100 dog around a post by his neck, so we play “Go Around.” LB likes this game and has learned to anticipate it. And sometimes he plays it well. And sometimes he does the other thing. I point in the direction I want him to go, which will unwrap the cable from whichever post he’s wrapped it around this time, and say “Go around!” He will immediately dive in the direction he thinks I want him to go, getting it right perhaps 40% of the time. If he gets it right he’s loose, and Daddy praises him and fawns on him and rubs his belly. If he gets it wrong he tangles himself up worse than ever, and Daddy plays the game more, until at last LB gets praised and fawned on and belly-rubbed. So either way LB wins. LB likes “Go Around.”
He likes it so much that sometimes he gets very excited. And when LB gets excited, sometimes things get broken. Like Daddy. Day before yesterday he got so excited by the game and the resulting belly rub that he just sort of mentally overamped and charged off in a random direction. I saw the cable coming behind me, which would either sweep my feet out from under me or cut them off at the ankles, just in time to get the meat one out of the way. Which of course only made things worse.
So my back was hurting before I spent almost seven hours in the unpadded saddle of Ian’s tractor. This morning when I awoke it was in that pre-agonal condition that said, “For the price of one wrong move, Joel, you can spend a week groaning and creeping around like a nonagenarian.” So I have devoted this day to good posture and the avoidance of lifting heavy, off-balance loads.
Oh me… I can certainly sympathize with the sore back. I fell down a flight of concrete steps 51 years ago, and cracked two vertebrae. The real damage was to four ligaments on the left side. I have lived with that pain, more or less, ever since. The older I get, the more I dread falling down. I know the pain will be increased for quite a long time, so I’ll do almost anything to keep from falling down, and sometimes that makes it even worse of course.
If I were you, I think I’d find somewhere else to tie LB… That pitcher is only going to the well just so many times.
You have my sympathy, my man. I very animatedly told your tale to a friend in a power wheelchair. I need to pick my audience more carefully…