Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Star's Poem

Haiku to My New Pink Best Friend
by Star

My new pink friend plays
chase with me but when I win
he is a bad sport.

The loser, being a bad sport (aka dead)
We've broken some temperature records here in the Austin area this summer (74+ days in triple digits, including a temp of 112 a few days ago, which tied the all-time highest temp ever recorded in our area).

The heat is taking a toll not only on us poor humans but also on the local wildlife. Some of the smaller critters, like the Mediterranean House Gecko (pictured above), have managed to slip inside to cool off. And Star is waiting for them.

Today's flattened gecko corpse is Number 6 in a pretty steady stream of summertime gecko corpses that I have found in the middle of the bedroom floor.

Star has been busy making friends with them.
"Um... My new best friend isn't moving anymore. Can you please fix it?"
Star is friendly to a fault with her gecko friends. She play-bows to the gecko, flops over and wiggles on her side, licks it, and taps it with her paw. Unfortunately, due to the fact that Star is 60 lbs and the gecko is less than an ounce, Star's playful moves make quick work of the gecko.

After a while, the excitement wears off, and Star lies down beside her mangled friend and nudges it mournfully with her nose. Then she walks off to look for a new friend—preferably one that isn't taking a sudden nap.

Number Six is in the minority, however. Most of the geckos make it out of the house alive; I do a "gecko sweep" before bed every night and carry outside any live geckos that I find. Often I will ask Star to observe while I carefully scoop up the live lizard and place it outside in a potted plant. I hope that through our modeling of appropriate behaviors, eventually she will realize that geckos do not want to play with her and need to be set free outdoors.

"Being older and wiser, I already have learned to just say no to geckos."

8 comments:

Kari in Alaska said...

Poor Star, she must wonder why her friends wont play :(

Kari
http://dogisgodinreverse.com

K-Koira said...

Aww, that sounds adorable though. (Be careful if you ever travel with her to places where red bellied newts are around, as her playful antics could result in her being poisoned by these gecko-like creatures.)

Forsythia said...

We've tried modeling good table manners to Ramsey, but yesterday I caught him helping himself to a chicken nugget that our grandson left on the table. Sometimes I wonder if he is incorrigible.

Leila said...

Quizz had a similar incident with a blue jay fledgling. I didn't get to it in time as I was extricating its sibling from Maddie's mouth. The irony is the only one who survived was in Maddie's mouth. The other didn't withstand Quizz's Paw of Play.
It was a long evening.

The gecko's just have to move faster or hide better. :)

HarrisonSnag said...

Just watched the Winnebago Man documentary online. The Winnebago Man has an totally adorable pitbull named “Buddha”. The movie is free to watch online at SnagFilms.com and Hulu for the next week. http://bit.ly/wmfree

HarrisonSnag said...

Just watched the Winnebago Man documentary online. The Winnebago Man has an totally adorable pitbull named “Buddha”. The movie is free to watch online at SnagFilms.com and Hulu for the next week. http://bit.ly/wmfree

Daisy Dog said...

Daisy and Roscoe are also fascinated with Lizards we have here. So far I have not found any dead, but they chase them outside and will stand next to a potted plant that they have run under forever waiting for them to come out. Sometimes Daisy will bark a the plant, telling the lizard to come out to play.

CadenceTheSabertooth said...

My sweet-heart Chloe tries to rough house with my two 4 year old Min Pins. I'll let them play around for bit but then I break it up to prevent either of the dogs from getting hurt.