Rolling Dog Farm Blog

It was 9 p.m. tonight and Alayne and I were sitting on the front steps of the house, enjoying the cool evening air after an unusually hot spring day (in the 80s!).  We had just finished dinner, the sun had dipped below the horizon, and we were relishing a few minutes of quiet time in the fading light.  I was enjoying a cold beer called, appropriately enough, Black Dog Ale, when our blind black Lab Evelyn walked around the corner from the other side of the house.  She must have heard us talking and came around for some loving.  I made all over her for a few minutes and then she walked off.

The next thing I knew, Evelyn was standing in front of me again, holding a tennis ball in her mouth.  She dropped it at my feet, then stepped back about ten feet and stood there staring at me, bouncing up and down with anticipation.  I picked up the ball and tossed it towards her.  The ball rattled around between her feet, she grabbed it with her mouth, and brought it right back to me.  She flipped it at me with her mouth, then jumped back several feet, waiting for the next toss.

Because we see these animals every day, we usually don’t even notice their disabilities.  To us, each of them in their own way seems perfectly ‘normal.’  But tonight, watching this sweet black Lab with no eyes in her head still want to play a game of fetch … well, it gave Alayne and me a lump in our throats.  This was something Evelyn had obviously done countless times before when she was younger and could see.  She clearly loved this game, and it didn’t occur to her that because she was now totally blind she couldn’t play it any longer.

So Evelyn and I played fetch with the tennis ball dozens of times tonight.  She never wanted to quit.  I was the one who finally said, "Honey, it’s time to go in!"  Bless her little heart.

The light outside was too dim to take a photo while we were playing fetch, so I brought Evelyn into my office afterwards and took this picture.