Kiwi's back to herding her red lambs

One week ago today, I took Kiwi to Pend Oreille Veterinary Hospital around 8 a.m. At 3:30 p.m., that afternoon, I paid the $186. vet tab, watched her pee on the examination room floor and then led her back to the car. Kiwi was pretty quiet last Tuesday night---didn't even beg from the potato chip bag. She remained fairly miserable and uncomfortable for the next couple of days.

After all, she had two incisions on her belly and a tender spot on her shoulder from spaying, hernia repair and microchip insertion. With last week's medical visit, Kiwi is officially our thousand-dollar dog. In my heart, however, that's a pittance in comparison to how much I appreciate and love her. To me, Kiwi remains priceless, even though I've never yet used a Mastercard to pay for any of her needs.

One week after surgery, she's fully healed and back to her projects, one of which includes standing with her front paws curled over the fence and watching the water shoot out of the hose into the horse trough. After all, there's always hope of grabbing a mouthful from that forceful stream as it flows into the tank. Then, you can choke for a few seconds afterward from swallowing so fast. She's also back to enthusiastically greeting every human being she meets around town or at our back door. After all, there's always hope of landing a big, juicy French kiss right inside folks' mouths, if you can only catch them off guard.

Tom, the Schwan's man, had Kiwi pegged the first time he met her, so he enters the house with his pocketful of treats and implores her to sit still while we visit and talk about the order. When she complies, she gets a treat. She complies a lot. Others along Kiwi's path have experienced varying degrees of success at convincing Kiwi that dirty paws on their clean clothes or juicy passion all over their faces won't win big human popularity points from the canine crowd. But, she's learning.

Yesterday, we went on our first "go-to-town" outing since her surgery. We walked First Avenue and cut over to the railroad depot via the Coldwater Creek bridge. One natural fear we've noticed about Kiwi is heights. Anything three inches or higher off stable ground brings out the doggie paranoia in our otherwise outgoing pooch. Immediately, she hovers close to the surface and moves along carefully like a wind-up vibrating toy. It's really bad at the vet office when they ask her to step on to the scales, which rest in the lobby right in front of other people and other doggie patients. She refuses and then pees. What woman wouldn't!

I noticed Kiwi's acrophobia a couple of times yesterday as we crossed two bridges over Sand Creek. In fact, I had to gently persuade her---with great force on the leash---that hovering on the sidewalk next to the south railing was far safer than hovering down the middle of Bridge Street. I think she put two and two together when the car passed by in the very spot where she'd insisted on hovering. She's a pretty smart dog.

One of the big adventures of being on the mend for Kiwi is getting back to work with her herd. That herd now consists of one dozen Folgers coffee cans, which she believes are sheep. I haven't told her any differently. I started giving her these plastic lamb substitutes last fall. Immediately, she took protective ownership of the ever-growing herd. Every time we've finished off another can of Folgers Classic Roast, Kiwi has happily welcomed the new addition.

When winter came on, she knew the pastures offered little nutrition, so over a few days' time, she rounded up every can from all corners of our ten-acre farm and convinced them to remain huddled in their winter range behind the house. Every day, she'll cut a couple of cans from the herd and bring them along for our walks around the place.

As I amble along the groomed trails (either lawnmowers or snow shoes keep 'em passable), Kiwi runs ahead with one of her Folgers lambs, finds a hiding spot, and guards her Folger's baby with fierce maternal vigilance. Then, she lies in wait for me to come along and kick the can a few more feet across the pasture. With that motion, she immediately launches off and races to catch it before it rolls too far from her grasp.

The process repeats itself dozens of times throughout our trips around the place. By the time, I come back outside for the next walk, the entire herd is once more fully assembled behind the house, and a "lucky?" Folger's can awaits its turn for Kiwi single it from the group and herd it across the fields as I pick a new route.

I do have concerns for the day when we take Kiwi to learn how to herd real live, white sheep. Possibly, it would be wise for us to take along a couple of cans and explain to her that sheep come from precisely the same family as her Folger's cans; they just have four legs and go "baa" instead rolling around and going "clunk." When that day comes, we'll deal with it.

For now, Folgers seems to do the trick for our priceless, happy, herding coffee-can dog. Hmm. I wonder if Folgers would like to use Kiwi in their coffee commercials.