Much ado about a dog and his bone.

We have a bookcase here that just happens to sit upon the floor at the perfect height for harboring portions of rawhide dog bones. This isn't something I've measured or even known about until I recently found myself on the floor, for reasons which now escape me, searching for something or somehow otherwise attracted to that area beneath the book case. You cannot really fit a whole one under there, but you can certainly get six portions of dog bone under there.

As usual, I told you that so I could tell you this. Now having six new dog bones—there's a statute of limitations upon dog bones wherein at expiration they become again new dog bones based only upon some unknown dog standard of time-space continuum—I have embarked upon proffering them to Jake (my dog) for his enjoyment, silly me, thinking that enjoyment would amount mostly to chewing them into oblivion. That's what dogs do with bones, correct? I missed another dog memo someplace because that's not at all what Jake thinks we should do with the new dog bones, though I hasten to interject into my own story that he now has within his maw a brand new, full-sized dog bone so that I can actually type this note up uninterrupted.

No, it appears that dog bone pieces, for lack of a better term, are intended for use in human interaction, for the express purposes of provoking more of it. Give Jake or, better yet, toss for Jake the piece of dog bone and it immediately launches the kind of retrieval drill you pay real money for when getting a hunting dog trained, and one which often defies accomplishment in the back yard when you've thrown the ball someplace you yourself really don't want to have to go get it, which is generally as far as you can possibly throw it in an effort to exercise the dynamo into submission, and thus two houses over, in the snow. Inside, while you're trying to do anything, be it watch tv, read a book, or especially attempt to write something, tossing the dog bone piece results in its immediate return where it's either dropped beside me where is sit or, more commonly, nosed into me via the wet muzzle which can move anything. Next time I go to jack up a car I'm going to try tossing a bit of dog bone under it first, saving me the trouble of even getting the jack out. Forget about any conception that the laptop keypad is not the place to rest muzzle and sloppy wet bone when it works so well to get my attention. Ah, now that I have your attention, and since you do have the bone now in your hand, how about you toss it across the room? So, I can retrieve it, relube it, and drop it again in your lap or next to you where I can then proceed to muzzle you aside like you'd hidden it there from me. Is this getting long and old? Well, you haven't spent the past twenty minutes trying just to type out the description of what has now been ongoing for the past hour, so cut me some slack.

This strikes me with some more than passing interest because I'm of the impression dogs are like men and basically goal-oriented about, well, everything. Yes, women are goal-oriented, but they're capable of multi-goal orienting and that's why no one ever truly understands what women are on about. Whatever it is I know it's logical. I've been told that. More than once. Emphatically. Sometimes, heatedly. Back to dogs—and women have no dog characteristics I should mention while we're doing a fly-by on women—I'm not sure what it is within the dog mind that signals this is a bone which, though you gave it to me, the dog, it's important you play with it. Why, when under other circumstances Jake would happily chew away at a bone for an hour, with not so much as a glance at me, does he now return these portions of bone as it I might want to fondle them or chew them myself, or like he was returning a found piece of valuable jewellery?

Obviously there's something going on here wherein it is important that I get some modicum of exercise, little as is required, or somehow need to play. It's clearly not for the dog, as he has made that clear, having no particular interest in the bone itself beyond that which is required keeping it properly slimed. And these are obviously special play bones, because I've half a dozen other bones laying around here on the floor, which I can find like a lost Lego in the middle of the night, which are of zero interest to him unless I specifically initiate the some action with them. No, these are human entertainment bones, for my benefit, and it's as plain to see as a dog's face.

And you know, whatever it was which was bothering me, and weighing a bit upon me an hour ago, really isn't anymore. And all I've got by way of explanation is a dog faced look which says, roll with it, I've got this. And that's pretty damn neat, I don't care who ya are. Jake admits to nothing, though sometimes he pretends I make sense. I'm pretty sure I've an understanding of which one of us best knows what's important, and that it somehow requires more dog saliva than I might have imagined.