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August 25, 2006

the amazing adventures of tardo, the dog wonder

My dog, Ed, is nearly 12. She's a former athlete well past her prime, and I'd long since concluded that her adventures were behind her. This is, after all, a dog who can no longer get out of bed unassisted some days, let alone jump into the back of my Jeep. My lifting Ed around is something with which we've both had to get comfortable in her dotage.

I was wrong. Ed had one more spectacular in her.

Yesterday, Dirt and his buddy Jim came over to my house to fish for salmon. I remained in the house, preparing dinner, while they went to the beach stairs.

"No, Ed," Dirt told her as he locked the gate at the top of the stairs. "Not this time." And then he saw a black and white blur shoot past his side. Ed had decided to leap for the staircase.

"Krypto the Superdog there bloody launched herself off the cliff, trying to clear the railing and land on the stairs," Jim recounted later. "She missed by about eight feet."

edsleap_sm.JPGSo if one misses the staircase, you might ask, where exactly would one land? An excellent question, one I wish the retard in question had considered. It's a precipice. Straight down for ninety feet. No one could survive this fall.

Dirt and Jim didn't even have time to vocalize before it was over. Tumbling, scratching, occasionally grazing earth, Ed reached the bottom in seconds.

"How fast was she going?" I asked.

"About ((32 feet per second) per second)," Dirt replied, his eyes still wide with disbelief. "And then she landed in sand, shook it off, and started prancing around the beach like it was all a part of the plan. She was chasing our lures into the water for an hour. Which, ironically, is what I was closing the gate to prevent."

It's 14 hours later at this writing, and Ed is resting in her bed, which she needed help exiting just now. Goldbrick.

posted by john at 7:38 AM  â€¢  permalink