What does this blue jay have to do with these bulldogs? Well, of course, they have absolutely nothing in common. For the most part, you'd think birds ignore dogs. They're quite anxious around, say, cats, but dogs do not scare them. It's impossible for a dog to catch a bird unless the bird is injured, so I suspect birds are ambivalent about canines.
But certainly they know our dogs are there. And certainly a smart bird, like a blue jay, understands the relationship between owner and dog. They watch us play, walk the dog, sit outside with the dog. They see the dog go outside. They see the dog come into our house (nest). The picture on the right are my dogs. Well, the brown bulldog on the right, Daisy, is my current dog, the bulldog on the left, Dora, is my former dog, may she rest in peace. Dora lived 14 1/2 years, a long time for an English Bulldog. The average age of this breed is about 9 years. But Dora loved her sister, and I think she went the extra mile in order to be with her. Maybe to be with me, too, but I think mostly to be with her sister. Daisy was not her real sister, only adopted, but Dora kind of raised her and saw her as family. By the time Dora was 13 1/2, she was legally blind and her vet suspected she was mostly deaf. All she had was her nose, so she liked to wander around sniffing things. I had to watch her constantly. If I dropped the leash at the park she ended up wobbling towards the area with strongest smells --usually the pond. At one park centered by a large pond, Dora came close to falling in the water. I also live on a pond, but we have a fence separating pond from yard, so she was safe outside. I still watched her. Daisy went out with her, but Daisy didn't like to poke around the yard. She was young and energetic and liked to play. Once she finished playing, she wanted back in the house. Not Dora. Dora stayed out, wobbling around the yard smelling everything. I would bring Daisy in, let Dora outside, but if I wasn't careful, she'd wander around the fence, into the neighbor's yard. The neighbor had no fence, so if Dora ended up in the neighbor's yard, she was in danger of walking into the pond and drowning. And in fact that almost happened a few times. Anyway, there were quite a few occasions when I looked outside and... no Dora. I panicked and ran outside, always forgetting to bring a leash. I'd run down the drive, around the street, frantically calling her name. Deaf dogs, by the way, will not come when their name is called. I always found her. A few times she smelled her way back home. It was a real struggle dealing with her because of her disabilities, and I made mistakes when distracted. Once, after letting her out in fifteen degree weather, I was distracted by a phone call, then distracted again by another call, then forgot all about her being outside and stepped on my treadmill to run. While running, I noticed blue jays settling on branches in my naked cherry tree. I was listening to music but could tell they were screaming. The tree began to fill with other passerines. Sparrows. Cardinals. Finches. The tree became so filled with birds, I felt like I had fallen into a Hitchcock movie. I turned off my ear buds and noticed the bird noise. The birds were chirping, the blue jays were screaming. At least fifty birds on this small cherry tree were making so much noise, it filled my small room where I keep my treadmill. Several sparrows and finch, and about four blue jays were looking through my window, at me. I thought at first they were looking at their reflection, but it was not a bright day and many definitely appeared to be looking at me. It hit me when I realized the tree was right by the patio. Dora! I ran to the den, and there she was at the patio door. Cold. I brought her inside, covered her with blankets and after a few moments she was fine. I was not. I was a very bad mom. Bad mom. Bad mom. Bad mom. And the worst kind of bad dog mom. A spacey bad dog mom. How could I forget a dog left outside in the cold when the dog was deaf and blind? She never barked, so there was that. I told myself that maybe she wanted to be out in the cold because she didn't bark. But she didn't bark much because she couldn't hear. Self flagellation lasted a while, until I noticed the blanket of quiet that had fallen over the yard. The birds, particularly the jays, had stopped screaming and chirping. Quiet. I opened the patio door, Dora by my legs staring outside at nothing because that is what a blind dog sees, nothing. There were a few quiet birds. Sparrows on feeders. Finches in the white pine. A blue jay on the distant birch. Did the blue jays lead a crowd of birds to the tree to yell at me so I'd remember my dog? Were they aware that Dora was blind and deaf and in danger? Did they notice my frantic appearance when she disappeared, leading them to believe I was very nervous about her? Did they sense I could get distracted? Did they fear I was a spacey bad mom? As Dora aged, her eyes eventually gave out. No more shadows, just darkness. She started eating dirt, bird and dog feces. She became weak. And she wondered off constantly. Even Daisy could not keep her in the yard. A few times, it was obvious the blue jays were keeping an eye on her for me. More on that later. And then the jays brought me a gift. Or maybe I imagined what I found was a gift? That is a possibility. Believe what you want. I think the timing of the object I found, how I found it, suggest it was indeed a gift. That's the next post.
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AuthorI like to write about people, animals, dogs. I enjoy ideas, good books about ideas, funny books about ideas, funny people who have ideas, advocates for people who don't have voices to express their ideas, and animals who have ideas we can't understand. Archives
November 2021
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