Home School Doggies
June 19, 2017
Home School Doggies
Many dogs have lived with us for various amounts of time (we’ve fostered quite a few). Each one leaves their unique pawprints on our hearts. Since dogs tend to single out one person to bond with, each one “belongs” to one of the girls for their stay. They sometimes refer to our dogs as “home school doggies” because they are part of our “home school family.”
Rebeccah had a cute Black Mouth Cur named Lady. Lady loved the girls so much that when they were doing school, she would wiggle around their feet and periodically whine. We’d say, “Lady, hush! They’ll come play in a bit.” She would wag her tail (which wagged her entire body in waves) and give us “the puppy look.” Lady weighed about eighty pounds and was still less than a year old! One of our neighbors said she looked like a deer! (She jumped like a deer too; dead stop with a 5-foot fence in front of her? Boing! She cleared it no problem.) She was friendly and loved everyone – especially other puppies smaller than she. (Since she was bigger than most of the children, I’m sure she considered them puppies.)
Sheba thinks she is the queen (our family dog who was 7) so she just slept on the couch during school work time.
Lady would climb in Rebeccah’s chair. She thought she was human. Rebeccah would occasionally dress Lady up. One day I hear “Mom! Come look at your newest student!”
Around the corner from the kitchen I spy our big human-sized dog standing with her back feet on the floor, left paw on the table, and right paw in Rebeccah’s hand with a pencil between her toes. (The DOG IS ON MY TABLE! But I laugh instead, because that look is hilarious – and yes, we caught it on camera!)
“Mom, Lady is doing my schoolwork today.” Rebeccah says. “I hope she’s good at fractions!”
I love the fact that happy interruptions (like an impromptu photography session, discussion of dog’s feet and toes and how different they are from human digits, or recess to rub their dog’s belly) can pop up and get included in their day.
By the way, we were doing “bookwork” after dark (about 7 in winter) because the day was just too pretty to stay inside. (We’re in Florida; winter = 60 degrees at noon) There is so much to be learned from events in our daily lives. We watched different Florida birds that morning and the explorers stumbled upon the deer thicket in the wild deep brush behind our house. So we looked up birds for identification and researched deer. (Surprisingly, the movie Bambi has a lot of truth about deer in it.)
One stretch we had bookwork “paused” while we spent extra time loving on a litter of puppies and their momma until each found their “fur-ever” home. The girls named and loved every one of those pups. They researched and learned a lot about life from those little sweeties.
Today, our two family dogs observe “bookwork” each in their own way (none as active a participant as Lady was):
Prim (one month shy of 3 years old) curls at Christina’s feet, yipping if her master’s bookwork takes too long.
Sheba still sits like a queen (she’s 10) on the couch, pretending she’s old and weak. (But open the gate and she’ll rejuvenate to 10-month-old-puppy and sprint outside so quickly that only Daddy or Kimberly can grab her!)
I’m so thankful for the “home school doggies” God puts with us to learn from and smother with love.
Thanks for reading!
Type at you later…
~Nancy Tart
