Travels with my buddy (who barks)

For my website I have to do a lot of travelling into the wilderness. With me comes my best buddy dog Rusty.
They say dogs are creatures of habit. I say sometimes they are and other times not - just as humans. Here is a case where habit won.
At home, the last excitement of the day happens in the kitchen. I squat on the floor, Rusty at the other end. I flick a little dry morsel across. He jumps at it and squeals, then chews mightily as if it were a bone. He inflates the show and plays Big Time. So do I by naming each morsel with a grave: Number One…Number Two…Number Three.
After that it’s bedtime.
Out in the desert, the car bonnet became the kitchen floor. The morsel shoots through space. Rusty jumps and catches his trophy. Then he sits and grins, ready for Number Two and Three.
One day, muddle-headed, I added a nameless Four. Rusty didn’t jump. His eyes followed that mathematical aberration through the air, then looked at me. He didn’t shake his head, but I knew what he was thinking. That morsel remained beyond accepted norms. He didn’t bother.
But you can’t typecast dogs. At home Rusty has made three places where he sleeps and changes them at will. I only have one bed. As habit goes: I am more of a dog than Rusty is.
A Healthy and Happy 2009 to all of you - Klaus and Rusty
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