ToeZ

We haven’t featured Zane’s toes since May, which is really a pity since he has such nice little toes. The other day I was looking at them and got all excited and yelled to Faith, “Look, he has my toes! See, the nail on the big toe is dirty.”

Someone must have cleaned it since.

Yesterday and into last night was another fussy, drooly day. The main difference between the previous fussy Zane and today’s fussy Zane is that he talks about it. He’ll look right at you and launch into something about something with all of the conviction and volume he can muster. We went for a walk and in conjunction with chewing his blanket he completely filled us in on all of the comings and goings with the world of Zane.

I’d transcribe them for you here, but there’s only a few words that I recognize and I suspect that I got those wrong too.

Many years ago I was testing Zeke to see if he could count. I’d hold up a couple fingers and he’d bark twice. Hold up one, one bark. Four barks for four fingers and so on. “Wow,” I told him, “You are a genius!” After the next test, my mind racing with the possibilities of a world famous counting dog, I left my fingers up a bit longer and Zeke continued to count right on past the number of fingers. He’d been “counting” as long as I held my hand up, which was only until he reached the correct number.

So there’s some trepidation in thinking that Zane is understanding what I say when he’s standing (me holding him up) and I say “Take a step” and he does. Or when I dress him and ask him to kick a leg out or push an arm through a sleeve and he appears to do just that. There could be some subtle actions on my part that nudge him one way or the other. But, eventually, and probably a lot faster than we expect, he will be doing all of these things and more.

In the meanwhile you need only follow the trail of drool to find him…