Shadow would never have puppies. We would have liked them but it was apparent to us that Shadow had a low threshold of pain. She had this game she played with Heather. She would jump over Heather’s legs as Heather sat on the floor playing catch and tug with a terrycloth bathrobe sash. Once she put her foot wrong jumping 4 inches and yelped in pain then whimpered for hours. The vet couldn’t find an injury. In addition to the pain issue, Shadow’s vet pointed out, female dogs fixed before they could have a litter; experienced lower incidence of breast cancer and ovarian cancer wasn’t even possible. Concordantly, Shadow had her surgery shortly after her first birthday. We felt bad enough conscripting her into this surgery so imagine how guilty we might have felt with her yelping through a delivery had we let her succumb to puppies. 

Getting back to Shadow’s issue with dog toys. Maybe she thought anything colorful and pretty should be delicious and was mortified because it wasn’t even edible. Anyway, through a Frisbee past her and she’d just watch it fly by. Then she would look at you longingly, notice the disappointment in your face, then change hers to a look of bewilderment as if to exclaim,  “If you wanted it why did you throw it away?”

This isn’t to say Shadow didn’t play. She had the tug game with towels and Heather’s home made tug toy. She liked catching popcorn or she caught it because she liked eating it. She chased squirrels. She was nuts about squirrels. I never thought she would catch one but she was a red blur when she shot out of our back door after one. Then one day there were two in the act of making little squirrels and she caught the one just as they broke and ran.  I think it was the male. She shook it just a little and tossed it a few feet. It scrambled to its feet and ran up the fence top with Shadows breath at its back. It sat there a moment panting and obviously disoriented. I’d always wondered what Shadow would do if she caught one. Heather and I joked that it would take hours with a squirrel psychiatrist to recover from this humiliating trauma.

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