A Riverdance of Love and Appreciation
Yes, I know I didn’t snark blog last night’s Miss America pageant, but with a holiday and company, I wasn’t invested enough to tape it and analyze it. We watched snippets after our family dinner and I saw a contestant do a clogging Riverdance type of dance performance. It is a type of dancing that always fascinated me thanks to Michael Flatley and his brilliant productions, including Riverdance.
My family then discussed that form of dancing and the next day, I saw Mayim Bialik do a version on the Big Bang Theory.
With that unique tap, tap, tapping dance once again in my mind, I was reminded of a blog I once wrote while I was publishing it in the Houston Chronicle, about my dogs doing Riverdance performances. Since most of my readers on my own blog site have never read it, I felt it was worth revisiting, because there is something so incredibly special about having the love of precious dear pets.
My beloved litter-mates, brother and sister toy poodles, Doodles and Pebbles, have gone over the rainbow bridge since I wrote it, but I think of them often. They are still missed, several to many years after the fact. So without further ado, here it is, and I think if you have ever had a pet, you will enjoy it.
Daily Riverdance of Devotion:
My pet poodles, Doodles and Pebbles, are so well trained. They are so polite, that they NEVER awaken me before my alarm goes off. On the weekends, they wait for the alarm, and when it doesn’t come, they leave me alone to enjoy extra sleep.
Yet every morning that there is an alarm going off, what immediately follows the sound of the alarm, is truly music to my ears. That’s because first thing every morning, my bedroom is the daily site for a “Riverdance” performance by eight paws doing a happy-happy-joy dance. With their sharp little paws on my wood floors, I swear that’s what it sounds like. It’s the tap, tap, tapping, in set precision.
With my eyes still closed, the clickedy-clack commotion my two small poodles make after the alarm goes off sounds perfectly timed and in unified precision, much like the Gaelic dance sensation. I don’t know how they coordinated their perfect precision and timing with each other, but the dancing is always, always in unison.
(I had always assumed their heritage was French, so they just might be doing the Can-Can, but it seems like they’ve got the spry stepping of the Irish in them too.)
And the reason for their joy? It is another new day to adore me, their mother, who they have just discovered to be waking up and still in their lives.
After the dance performance, they lavish love and affection on me in an exaggeratedly excited way – pawing at me with licks thrown in and tails ferociously wagging away.
I marvel at their appreciation; they give me this extreme appreciation daily just for being ignored much of the time, for receiving some hard, dry pebbles we call dog food in their bowls once a day, and a few trips daily to their backyard outhouse.
All that love just for being their mommy.
And all that happiness to greet a new day. We have a lot we could learn from dogs, most specifically teenagers could use that lesson!
Sigh.
Back to present day: you are forever in my heart Doodles and Pebbles. I am so glad I have grandpups to love with you both gone.
