MAIDI

BACK TO START PAGE Sniff and Toke are half-brothers. (It is unusual for us dogs to be closer related than that - if we were not born into the same litter, so to speak - so when I tell you about Toke being my cousin, what I really mean is that my mother was half-sister to his father.) Sniff and Toke are brothers on their motherīs side. Their motherīs name was Flower-Maid, but her owners just called her Maidi. She was also a member of our household for a while - actually quite a long time - from the middle of her eighth year, until her death at twelve and a half. She was staying at the grandparentīs house, where she at once became Tokeīs guiding-star. Granddad was still alive when she arrived. Soon thereafter Löken moved to her own little appartment (not a very pleasant one) but when granddad died she immediately moved back again, to help granny manage the big house, otherwise she would have to sell it. My strongest memory of Maidi is how hungry she was...all the time. She would have leaped through fire for a piece of something edible. (I am also fond of food, but not the same way as she - she was obscessed with it!) Another thing I remember is her being scared to death by my previous mistress. When visiting us in our cottage, she went directly up on the sofa, where she was lying quietly, hiding until they came to take her home. The only times she was rising was when expecting something to eat. Maidi loved Toke dearly, but she was not very fond of Sniff. She was dominating Toke with little subtle gestures, but to poor Sniff she was rather brutal. If his presens did not please her she would simply give him a lecture and drive him away. But after all he was never a particularly polite and attentive son. Maidi had an uncommon sense for the pleasant aspects in life. She loved upholstered furniture, unmade beds and other places where she could make herself a "nest" and be really comfortable. Toke has told me about one day, when she was rather new in the house. Granny and granddad were busy packing a suitcase with sheets and towels to send away to the laundry, when Maidi came tripping along and sat down on top of everything. She thought it was a splendid idea to arrange a nice, soft bed for her. Another spot which she highly favoured was right under the lamp in granddadīs reading-sofa. She often used to lie there, enjoying the heat from the electric bulb. When granddad came in to sit down and read, she was glaring at him disobligingly, refusing to get up and leave. He had to move her away by force, although she looked at him with accusing eyes, murmuring loudly in protest. Then there was the part about food... Maidi was as crazy about food, as all of us other beagles together. She had an eye to the main chance, our humans used to say. There was practically nothing she refused to take in her mouth (not even garlic or coffee powder), so while strolling around in the garden she ate everything she could find there. She ate horse-droppings and dog mess and any other shit, when she was out for her daily walks. In the garden she dug her nose into the dirt until her face was totally grey with it. She cracked cherry-stones and acorns, searched for rotten apples under the trees and pushed the lid off from the compost box. (Granddad was driven to desperation, being contantly occupied with shoveling the earth back into her countless excavations.) If she could not get something better, sticks and bark was alright. Löken thinks she was even eating common gravel and pebbles. Once she was looking as round as a football, after being wolfing down half a bag of bone manure. She was not feeling good that time - otherwise she could hold the most of what she ate...until the evening when she swallowed a bird - a WHOLE bird, feathers and all. They had to take her to the hospital in the middle of the night. When granny and Löken returned, Maidi was no longer with them... Toke is often telling us they dropped her off on the road, but I know better than he what is going on in those hospitals... You are tortured, pricked and CUT OPEN there! And once you are cut open, you will be sent to the SAUSAGE FACTORY! I was extremely lucky to get rescued by my mistress. Otherwise I would also have been transformed into a SAUSAGE! NEXT PAGE PREVIOUS PAGE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 - 12 13 14 15