A Tribute to Bailey

As the first (last) post of the year, I am going to tell you about Mr. BIG. Actually when he was a little guy I was holding and playing with him and I thought that he looked like Gizmo from the movie
The Gremlins.

I came up with the idea to name him Bailey's Irish Gizmo. In other words the Initials would spell out BIG but I would call him Bailey. I then got a little freaked out. I had not thought of my friend Bob Bailey for years (except at New Years - more later) and certainly was not thinking about him when I got Bailey. I just wanted a Yorkie. Then I remembered Bob owned the first Yorkie that I had ever seen or played with. I had always had mixed breed dogs or beagles or Shelties but never a Yorkie. What a strange thing that I had gotten a Yorkie and then named him after Bob Bailey. The name stuck and I have had fun with Bailey for about 14 years.

I think that his playing with the soccer ball is the most fun. He loves it when I get the ball out and he will push it and then I throw (roll) it away and he goes and pushes it back. You can see it is bigger than he is. He also has to have something in his mouth when he does it. One time it was a coke can and once he had a stuffed banana that looked like a cigar.

He is obsessive about his toys and will worry them to death. Eventually he carries most of them outside and then we find them and bring them in. I throw them in the washer and he sits and watches while they wash and dry and then will worry them just as if they were a new toy. Max does not do this with the toys but once in awhile he will get playful and the boys will play together with them.

If I have company Bailey insists on being the center of attention. He loves to take his ball from one person to another and then have each person throw it for him. It doesn't matter which ball he has big or little, he seldom picks it up in his mouth and carries it back but will put a stuffed toy in his mouth and then bat the ball with his fore legs (no he doesn't use the back legs just the front legs) and roll in back to the next person.

Most of the time Bailey will spend his time laying up against my leg on the foot rest of my recliner. He is either there or under the davenport (sofa) with his butt sticking out. He follows me around and he sleeps with me. (I have steps up at the foot of the bed so he can get up there.) Lately I noticed that he is having more difficulty jumping up on the recliner so I have to make sure it isn't too high for him although when I come home from being gone he forgets his trouble and has no difficulty jumping up on either the chair or the sofa to greet me.

I found out that when I am gone he will jump through the cat door that Ginny had put on her old room (Now Max and Jon's room) and spend time in there with Max. No, I did not install a Yorkie cam. I just caught him coming out one day when he had not heard me drive back in. Max has to spend time in there when I leave because otherwise he will find things to chew and I have come home to find more ball point pens in a mess on the floor than I care to recount. Not that I worry about the pens but I don't think the vet bill would be a good thing if he ingested them.

Now one last thing. Why I don't go out on New Year's Eve. In the late sixties when I was teaching in Marion, Iowa I used to go to Iowa City to "play" (Yes I was a party animal and I could tell you stories) - That was where I met Bob Bailey and fell in love with the Yorkie breed of dog. We became friends and one New Year's Eve we were all (a bunch of us) going to meet in Des Moines at a bar (Oh heavens, Jay you went to bars???? Yes I did! And it was a blast!) I kept waiting for them (Bob and his roommate) to come and when they didn't show and I found out that they had been killed by a train on their way home from work it just took all of the pleasure out of New Year's Eve for me. So I don't usually go out that night. I plan to go to Des Moines to see Sweeney Todd this afternoon (I understand it will give me nightmares) then stop at the Scottish Rite for the event and be home and "tucked in" with a good book. Remembering all of the good things and looking forward to 2008.

By the way my friend Psychic Su Walker has put her predictions for 2008 up on her blog.

I hope you have a great day and I will probably post another time later to let you know what I thought of Sweeney Tood.