"Beauty confronts us with the requirement that we place ourselves among...the redeemers, the leaders in the protection of life. Once you have seen the bush on fire, you are not going to get out of the assignment unless you close your eyes to the beauty.... [You] either have to close your eyes or go back to Egypt and set the people free." - Rev. Dr. Rebecca Parker, "Rising to the Challenge of Our Times"

Saturday, August 09, 2008

Corgolympics

I wish this could be caught on video. I think Ripley has an inherent agility course-running proclivity. At least once a day, sometime in the morning, she does laps as if she's competing in the 400m. But she is not content to run around and around in a plain old boring oval. At work she does top-speed loops of the enclosed back yard that include detours under the picnic table and through the porch posts and around the trees. In my office (a much smaller area) she goes just as fast around my desk chair, behind the desk, and around the room. This morning at home (while I was watching footage of the opening ceremonies, no less) she invented a course that went around the coffee table, behind the futon, through the kitchen, and back into the living room. She repeats the same course for almost every lap. Tomorrow morning I'll try to count how many laps she does and report back.

Now that she's worn herself out maybe I should go for a run myself.

1 comment:

Bellabell said...

At least the Ripper works out her own laps! Tango sits beside us each morning, doing the patient, faithful dog act until one of us sighs, goes to get one of her 10 balls (9 of them now hidden under couch or behind drain pipe), and begins a game of throw-and-chase. One of us is a horrific thrower, which means the ball can go three feet, or it can hit a side wall and dance around the room, or crash into glass-topped tables. The more angles in the trajectory, the happier our little cattle dog is; she can make turns, not on a dime but a lentil, and seems full of delight when such challenges come up. I think the complicated route the Ripper is doing is her attempt to recreate the paths of stubborn cattle that lurk in her Corgi collective unconscious. She is keeping herself sharp in case she ever is needed for cattle herding, poultry rounding-up, biker bundling, or whatever her Mom wants. More pictures, puhleeze!