Let (barking?) dogs lie

Lizzy has a demonstrable hatred of horses. Each and every time that an Amish buggy rides up or down our road, Lizzy rushes to any window, door, gate, or whatever opening she has near and will bark incessantly until the clip-clop of the horses can no longer be heard. Her barking, however, begins way before (and ends way after) any of us can hear the horses coming or going because, as a dog, her hearing is so much better than ours, something that's not a plus in these situations.

Her hatred of horses has extended to barking at the television while, in an episode of "The Tudors," Henry VIII rode into the scene with a posse of friends, all on horseback. Lizzy, unfortunately, cannot distinguish between real and televised horses so her reaction is equally loud and distracting. My commands of "quiet" aren't very effective and my mom has taken to simply pressing her mouth shut until the offending horses are out of dog earshot.

Apart from her insane reaction toward horses, and her love for occasionally rubbing herself against her own poop or for getting all muddy by digging up a hole in her incessant search for chipmunks, Lizzy is quite adorable and has become the darling of her grandparents, who dote on her and give her way too much credit, my husband and I think.

While Lizzy still gets mopey after I leave, my husband says that because my parents are here and they pay so much attention to her, she doesn't miss me as much as she used to when it was just him and I in the house. In fact, Lizzy now has spent the same amount of time with the two of us as she has spent with the four of us and we agree that she'll sorely miss my parents once they return to Puerto Rico for the winter.

Tomorrow night Lizzy and I return to our obedience classes (we only have two more to go) and I don't think she's impressed her teacher with her willingness to obey me or anyone else. She has impressed the teacher with her cuteness but not with any of that bright intelligence my parents seem to notice in the dog. In fact, the teacher, who suggested to a couple who have a huge mastiff puppy that they should consider an advanced obedience class, turned to me and Lizzy and asked me is we'd like to do more obedience training. I don't think Lizzy is going to get any certificates of merit and I won't be surprised if she downright fails the darned class. But I can't fault her for having an anti-obedience spirit because that's probably where she and I are very similar.

Meanwhile, we have another creature that has joined our household, a tiny little frog that has now claimed the front yard water feature, which is supposed to look like a pond. My husband can't explain how the frog reached this pond, but the frog seems to be very content, sunning itself on the rocks and then spending much of the day in the water, waiting for unsuspecting insects to come along. My husband thinks that it might end up as a snack for the snakes that live under the ground cover around the pond, but I'm betting against that prediction, hoping that the snakes don't like frogs for dinner.

On the professional end, the semester is off and running, and even though this is only the second week of my easier semester, with only two classes to teach and about 22 students in total, I don't find time to do much of anything that's not school-related. I even had to return the second season of "The Tudors" to the public library, although (hopeful person that I am) I requested it again from a closer library and am hoping I can find the time to finish the second season before I run out of renewals.

In that same hopeful vein, I registered for a few quilting classes, one that will teach me to quilt a pillow case next week and another two subsequent workshops that will teach me to quilt Christmas stockings. That'll probably be it for my non-school ambitions this fall. That said, I should really go now and read for my class on Friday. ¡Buenas noches!