By Jim Hagarty
2013
Poodles, apparently, don’t have the best eyesight. I think this is true as our poodle Toby seems to strain at times to recognize people he knows as they approach him on the sidewalk.
A couple of weeks ago, my neighbour dug a hole on his front lawn, for reasons no one knows. The proof that I live in a boring neighbourhood is that the pile of dirt that sat beside the hole and the hole itself became the subject of much speculation among the local population.
The dirt pile is not a big one – maybe two feet high. Toby had no problems recognizing it for what it was – a dangerous intruder in his territory and he let that dirt know his opinion of it every time we walked by it. He was afraid of it, plain and simple, mistaking it, likely, for another dog.
So twice a day I had to stand there holding the leash as that pile of dirt got a good talking to by my 12 pounds of fuzzy fury. But after about three days, Toby figured out that his fear was imaginary and – wait for it – that he had been making a mountain out of a molehill and he let it go. Just like that.
I don’t have fantastic eyesight either, having gotten my first specs at the ripe old age of seven, and I also have barked at lots of things over the years that turned out to be nothing.
Toby and I make good companions, the nervous nellies that we are.
