What I love about her is her spirit, although it is maddening to have her nose right under the spade as I am digging, and when she gleefully sprints through the open gate into the road with absolutely no idea that it could be her last move on this earth, I almost have a heart attack.
Recently she jumped over the wall into my neighbour's garden in pursuit of a dove. (This neighbour's house is in another street.) Unfortunately for her the wall is higher on my neighbour's side, so she couldn't get back. It took her seconds to realise this and by the time I walked through the house to go and fetch her, she was panting at the front gate - a distance of at least 500m done at the speed of light. She hasn't tried that again!
But the funniest thing about Ruby is her appetite! It is insatiable and she'll eat anything. So many meals of mine have disappeared in a moment of distraction, and items of food put down for a moment are gone when I turn around. This season of harvests has caused quite a few issues. Firstly the olives. Who would believe that a dog would love olives off the tree, as bitter as they are? No problem for Ruby who gobbles them up as they drop off. Later I have to deal with the vomit. All my dogs like olives once they have been cured, but not when they are still bitter!
When I open the back door in the morning, I have to make sure Ruby is safely inside while I quickly pick up all the guavas that have fallen off the tree in the night. She will happily wolf the lot. If she tucks into guavas later in the day, (as they fall off throughout the day), she'll wake me in the middle of the night to go out. So I haven't had a good night's sleep for a while.......
And then yesterday while I was harvesting the hawthorn berries, she decided to have a taste too. It was a struggle to get to the bunches of berries before she did, as they fall down when I cut them, and I have to get down the ladder!
When we go for walks all the dogs get to stop at gardens where eugenia cherries lie on the ground. They love them and eat quite a few before we move on. And when they hear me chopping vegetables they cluster round hoping for some broccoli stalk or cabbage stalk. Ruby doesn't reject anything, while the other two are more selective. The other day some raw onion slices landed on the floor. I read that this is really bad for dogs. But before I could pick them up Ruby had hoovered them up and was happily crunching away.
Most of my friends have heard the story of the cookies. I had prepared a batch of 60 rustic cookies (the recipe is somewhere in this blog), all cut out and ready to bake. The doorbell rang and ..........
Ruby pulled the baking paper with all the cookies onto the floor and wolfed the lot. You could hear my wails for miles. Luckily she digested it very well.
Punnets of tomatoes, bags of nuts, peppermints, a (plastic) bottle of olive oil, cream cheese, yoghurt, you name it, all have been stolen and eaten if I'm careless. It's an expensive business!!
Sounds like you have your hands full with Ruby. Reminds me of our Boxer that we had a few years ago, he learnt to open the fridge door and wolfed down an entire fridge tart, a 1 kg block of cheese and numerous stove top meals. But he was adorable and I still miss him.
ReplyDelete