Sticks in the yard

Over the last year or two, I've developed a real taste for sticks.



Well, actually, the taste for sticks goes back a ways. For years, especially during the winter, I have been amusing myself by chewing on pieces of wood from my toy box. I don't understand why my parents fill up my toy box with crud like Kong toys and special rope that's supposed to floss your teeth as you chew it. It makes it more difficult for me to get at the pieces of wood.

But what I'm referring to here is the big sticks in the yard. These days I'm particularly fond of a 10-foot branch that fell off our silver maple tree a month ago during heavy winds. (There was also a tornado in the neighborhood. Thank goodness it didn't hit our house--it might have sucked all the water out of my pool!)

My favorite activity with sticks in the back yard is chewing off any small nubs that may be sticking out. Even a half-inch nub from a broken-off sub-branch is good enough. The nubs are also good for dragging the branch around the yard. 'Course, only a skilled dog like myself could drag around a 10-foot stick around the yard by a half-inch nub.

True, the nubs are handy for dragging the sticks around. But they must go! Sticks should be perfectly smooth. Any deviations from smoothness will be attacked by me most vigorously. I'll show those German Shepards who's the serious dog around here!

"Wait a minute," says you. "Are they sticks or branches? Seems to me a 10-foot section of wood 3 - 4 inches in diameter ought to be called a branch."

Well, says I, call it what you will. A big, powerful dog like myself will refer to it as merely a stick.

"Big, powerful dog eh?" says you. "What kind of a dog runs away from the stick fearfully when it falls on the ground and bounces?"

Gotta go, says I. I think I hear my mother calling.