We spent the day at the Hanover Fall Fair on Sunday. The usual fall agricultural fair stuff – 4H kids with their dairy cattle, prize winning chickens, heavy horse pulls, miniature horses and the steer competition.
It was during the steer competition that we met our new favorite cow steer – a rather aggravated looking black Angus with the most recalcitrant, stubborn expression on his face. While the other cattle were lining up nicely, feet perfectly placed and still as statues, this cow non coew steer was pissed off about the whole ordeal. He stomped from side to side, refused to put his feet where they belonged, and was muttering under his breath that it was ‘all pointless’.
The thing is, he just looked exactly like Delilah — well, OK, not exactly. I mean, Delilah is a twenty two pound French Bulldog, not a two ton steer, but it’s all in the eyes. He had has her same black, deep, shoe button eyes, and her precise expression of mutinous, stubborn will power. If they both had a saying tattooed on their sides, it would be “Don’t wanna“.
I picture Delilah behaving in the exact same way if we were ever stupid enough to try to stick her in the show ring. Plus, we’re not allowed to use those hook thingies to poke our dogs into place — although with some dogs, we should be (she said ominously, shooting a dirty look at the small black dog sleeping on her feet).
Penelope, who resembles nothing more than a brindle basketball on four legs these days, is on a mid pregnancy hunger strike. She is not making this whole impending motherhood thing easy, that’s for sure. Currently, she will only eat her food if I:
a) poach and shred a chicken breast onto her raw food
b) artfully arrange the chicken so that it wraps around the raw food, camouflaging it
c) I then poke the little balls of chicken camo raw food into her waiting mouth, like a stupid floor sitting mommy bird feeding her evil little offspring
The other dogs, of course, gape at this entire procedure with their mouths hanging open. Sailor has started to let out shrieks of outrage, which, if translated into person-speak, would no doubt sound like “Are you freakin’ kidding me? You’re hand feeding her? Me, I got a hunk of raw chicken to eat, and I liked it. Tell princess I’m going to come and smack some sense into her thick little skull.”
Penelope just rolls her eyes, yawns, and tells me to get my pedicure kit and do her toe nails in a prettier shade of pink. It’s rough being the center of the universe.
Here’s Elliott, after I told him that his paramour was refusing to eat poached chicken breast –
Immediately after wards, he rolled off the couch in shock, bonking his head on the floor. Luckily, he’s a boy Frenchie, which means his head is full of rocks, so the only damage was a dent in my floor.
Of course, Paris, who is Penelope’s mortal enemy, kindly offered to finish off any food Penelope didn’t want, and even some she did. She’s always helpful like that.
