{"id":3009,"date":"2019-04-29T08:02:41","date_gmt":"2019-04-29T15:02:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/?p=3009"},"modified":"2019-04-30T07:26:25","modified_gmt":"2019-04-30T14:26:25","slug":"life-with-libby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/archives\/3009","title":{"rendered":"Life With Libby"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Libby's<\/a><\/p>\n

For my sixth birthday in 1955 I got to choose the puppy that would be my dog and our family\u2019s dog for the next twelve years. Cozy was part German Shepherd, part Toy Collie, and part Cocker Spaniel. She was adventurous and intelligent and affectionate and loads of fun. The week before I left for college, Cozy was standing in the road a few feet from our driveway when she was hit by a car and died instantly.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never had another dog. I\u2019ve had many cats, but never another dog. Now at the age of sixty-nine, I\u2019ve been thinking about getting a dog. The universe apparently got wind of my thinking and arranged for us to dog-sit Libby, Sandy Cosca\u2019s eight-year-old dog, for a week.<\/p>\n

\"Libby<\/a><\/p>\n

As I post this blog, our week with Libby is about to end, and I will be curious to see how I feel about life in her absence. In no time at all, she became a central part of our existence, and all week long, before Marcia and I did anything, separately and together, we took Libby into account.<\/p>\n

For the most part, Libby has been a delight. We took many more walks than we usually do, there are now ankle-threatening holes in the yard where Libby tried to dig down to the gophers she smelled, and my vocal cords had a good workout talking to Libby in a voice I don\u2019t use when I talk to humans.<\/p>\n

\"Libby<\/a><\/p>\n

On her first day with us, Libby chose our living room futon as her bed and main hangout, and the first time I lay down there for an afternoon snooze, she was a bit annoyed, but quickly adjusted to the brief displacement.<\/p>\n

\"Todd<\/a><\/p>\n

We discovered Libby is not a morning person. Some dogs, it turns out, are people, and vice-versa. When we got up to start our day, Libby stayed on the futon, musing somberly about life until mid-morning. Her energy peaked in the late afternoon, and by nine she was ready to snooze through the night.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Libby<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

While Libby was living with us, my friend Max sent me the link to his new movie Guys<\/i><\/a>, a mesmerizing thirty-three minute video I highly recommend to anyone interested in the complexities and mysteries of being a human being.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Libby<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve watched Guys<\/i> three times now, once with Libby on my lap. As we watched Guys<\/i> <\/a>together, she seemed most interested in the parts I was most interested in, and not much interested in the brief scenes in which dogs appear. This is consistent with how Libby is when not watching movies. She seems indifferent to other dogs, but she is keenly interested in people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For my sixth birthday in 1955 I got to choose the puppy that would be my dog and our family\u2019s dog for the next twelve years. Cozy was part German Shepherd, part Toy Collie, and part Cocker Spaniel. She was adventurous and intelligent and affectionate and loads of fun. The week before I left for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[680,5501,306,5502,5500,5499,977,3017,9,33,5503],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3009"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3009"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3021,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3009\/revisions\/3021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underthetablebooks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}