Old Puppies

Note:  If I talked to you recently and said, "Oh yeah, I kind of know what I'm going to write about, but it's pretty boring."  Well, I just got done with (gave up on) that one.  If you want to know just how boring it was though, I can say for certain that it is way way Boringer than the one I'm about to write.  So just be happy about that.

If you have an old dog that just lays around all bored and everything, Maybe you should get him a puppy.

I don't really know much about dogs. I do know they seem to lie around a lot.  It seems to me the older ones have become so efficient at lying around that when something grabs their attention, they immediately investigate by shifting their eyebrows to and fro. No head lift.  Maybe a slight tail wag and that's it.  No wasted energy.

They've been doing this dog thing long enough that they understand precisely how much energy to expend in order to survive.

Zero.

The food is just over there in the bowl.  There's no hunting necessary.  In fact, it was possibly frowned upon by the food providers like just about everything else.

Jumping up on people in happy greeting!  No! Down!

Barking at the door just for sport?  Forget it.

Chewing on tasty shiny shoes.  Newspaper attack!

The only thing the old dog has learned for certain is that there is no trouble in just laying around.  Unless you fart, but that's another matter.

But puppies?  Bring in a puppy and it will immediately try to get the old dog playing.  It will run into it.  Bark at it.  Challenge it.  Jump around.  Taunting.  Every once in a while the old dog will join in for a while, but mostly he will figure it's just not worth the effort. The old dog has a regimented plan that he must stick to.  This unscheduled play has no place in the old dog's life or ATP.

But that's where the old dog has missed it.  Unscheduled play is one of the best things life has to offer.

Over the last few years, I've been on a few hundred bike rides. About 25% of those are group rides.  All different kinds of group rides.

Some of those rides are fairly regular and predictable. There is a set goal (fitness).  Nothing (including fun) must interfere.  There are places where people are allowed to sprint or launch an attack.  Specific places.  There's probably a rulebook somewhere stating the appropriate places for surprise attacks.  These are serious important strength building rides and yada yada yada.

And I'm ok with that. These rides are also completely optional but I join because I hate myself and when I'm in pain, I think "Good! Jerk!"

But sometimes a bouncy little puppy (Peter Boyd) will join the ride.

He'll jump around and chat with people.  He'll attack out of nowhere at the wrong time and then sit up when everybody whizzes by him. The old dogs will laugh at the puppy's foolishness.  Silly Peter Boyd, they'll say.  He thought his attack on our training ride would succeed! Ha - HA! Cough, cough, cough!

But his attack did succeed. He's a puppy. A bike tossing puppy, sure.  But still a puppy. He didn't attack to "win".  He attacked to wake the old dogs up. To get them to play.

Mission accomplished.

Then he chewed on Shim's shoe.  Which I admit was a little weird, but hey.  Puppies.