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| Kobi Turns 1 Year Old (May 16 2003) |
| A card arrived from Grandma Farwell in England, and was held in his mouth for about 10 minutes on the bed, put down on the bed and sniffed at, but never torn. Did Kobi remember Grandma's smell when he opened the card?? |
| Kobi got to eat breakfast at the table with us on his birthday (he had a ham and cheese omelette). He found the invitation to eat at the table a bit confusing, but he dealt with it. A double chair set up helped the big BernerxAppenzeller butt to fit....and he didn't even spill onto the table. |
| Kobi has told me to write the below poem for him - it's posted on our fridge (using the Dog Poetry Kit sent by Grandma Carol): It recalls the tale from this winter, when he was playing with one of his (many) girlfriends near the Savoy ski piste. Just prior to meeting up, Kobi had been intimidated in a nearby empty lot by a big Huskie, who had scared him and tried to mount him and growled. I chased the other dog away, and Kobi just whined. While playing happily with the girl about a half hour later (a small Gordon setter, very skinny and gangly) with the two of them tumbling and running around in the snow, the Huskie suddenly re-appeared. He immediately and took off after the girl, who was very scared of him. She dashed up an icey hill, cowering and running as fast as she could and whimpering w/the Huskie in pursuit. Kobi was told to stay, and did, but kept looked at me, whining with a worried look on his face. Her owner or I could not get up the hill fast enough to get to the other dog, to see what was happening and were scared. I quickly changed my mind and told Kobi 'Go get her and bring her back'. He took off up the icey hill after them. A few minutes later, he came bounding down the hill, with the Gordon Setter girl at her side, leaping up against his smiling face to lick him, and the Huskie wasn't following. When the Huskie briefly tried to come back, as we yelled at it to leave, Kobi started barking as well and it ran off. He saved the chick....and they played happily ever after. I think his writing in this poem truly captures the feelings of that fateful day. . . . |
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| Kobi's love of fetching sticks finally overcame his fear of swimming when he spontaneously jumped into the water after a stick at the Barberine waterfalls on June 10th and kept going in again and again that afternoon. Before this point he loved to go into the water a lot, and play in it and would make piles of rocks or sticks he retrieved by himself on the shore (he 'fishes'). But never went over his chest level, though we tried to encourage him. He swam once at Esparron the previous summer, but got scared and wouldn't come back in after his first try (he realized we'd come out of the water if he waited). If we threw sticks last year, he would go as far out as he dared and bark and bark and bark, hoping they'd come floating back. Now he just can't get enough of swimming and gets excited and barks whenever we drive up to areas where he can see there are lakes or ponds and he HAS to go in (or you won't stop hearing about it). You'd think he was a water dog. Thank god we have vinyl seats instead of cloth ones in the car (easy wipe!) |
| Yes the little black spot in the foreground is Kobi, laying down chewing a stick, dwarfed by the Mt Blanc Massif in the background. Shot this spring on one of our daily walks. |