A Maggie Update

Long time readers may remember that the origin of this blog lies with my dog Maggie's medication schedule. She has to take a pill an hour before eating so I use that morning time to write the blog. Maggie seems to be doing OK in her fight against Cushing's Disease, and like a person with a chronic disease she is learning a lot about herself. For example, her medication makes her excessively hungry and thirsty. She's learned to tell time at least for that sixty minutes between her morning pill and when she is due for food. If I linger over the blog, she is usually at my feet reminding me its time to go. Without watching a single episode of Lassie, she's also learned the "Little Timmie's Down the Well" move to tell me if she has emptied her water bowl-run to the bowl, run back to me and look very excited, run back to the water bowl, repeat as necessary.

Maggie, at 14 lbs, is a large Pomeranian. With her characteristic Pom hair cut for summer she looks like a tiny sled dog and has the attitude to match. All Poms have a lot of Alpha dog attitude, and Maggie has that characteristics in spades since she was jumped by a Jack Russell as a puppy. Mastiffs and rottweilers have felt the wrath of Maggie's barks at least up to the moment when she determines that the dog really is a little too big to handle. Thus, I was amazed yesterday when after a little preliminary barking Maggie settled down for five minutes of quiet time with another Pomeranian. Is it possible she can recognize her own breed? Who knows, but she never gives up trying to intimidate other types of small dogs.

With other animals Maggie is at peace. Aside from an occasional woof at Edwin the Education Bunny or Blue the Rooster, she is a quiet observer of nature. Big Tom, the wild Turkey, usually a bundle of nerves, will walk within a few feet of Maggie, and she never chases squirrels or chipmunks either. In fact, the only animal she will chase are deer. This past winter we followed a deer track for half a mile through snow drifts before I got tired and turned her around. A live deer causes her to take off like a beagle after a rabbit. As you can see Poms are subject to delusions of grandeur.