Sacha Gets Hurt!

Sacha is very fast and very aggressive. If Felicia throws pieces of food to the ground, out of five dogs, Sacha will get to it first. Of course, I don’t dare even get close, and Dolce is just a puppy, so she doesn’t even count. In reality, the contest is essentially between Max, Sacha and Peaches. Max is nothing if not all about food. (In fact, as I write this, Max is outside, lapping up a glass of milk that India left behind when she went back to college [see photo, below]).


Now, Peaches gives as good as he gets also, and growls and barks, but Sacha is taller and much faster and usually wins. Max isn’t responsive or alert enough to get the food in time; and by the time he realizes what happened, the goody has been long consumed. Now, as you will notice by these two pictures of Max that India took last night, Max’s prime Alpha Dog days are gone (see below). He is getting old, his frame is shrinking and getting bony, he has a large growth on the skin near his hip that needs watching, and he’s deaf, which causes Felicia to either bang on the door as he sits right next to it, looking out at the yard, or have to go out and tap him on the shoulder before he realizes it’s time to come in from outside.


He is also losing his muscle control. His left rear leg has twitched for the last year, and his tongue hangs out most of the time. It adds to his rather endearing look, and Felicia is always happy to see that despite these infirmities of old age, he still loves to eat. Max’s number one priority has always been food. So Felicia puts food in the cage so Dolce can eat in peace, because Dolce doesn’t like to eat alone in the bath, and Felicia was busy and didn’t have time to sit with her. Sacha and Max sit outside the cage, transfixed, looking in. A few seconds later, a fight erupts, why, is anyone’s guess as neither can even touch the food, they’re just looking. The upshot is, Felicia separated them, and Sacha started crying.



Sacha is Felicia’s “problem child,” and very high maintenance. A golfer who saw Felicia walking Sacha once told her that he had noticed that “HM” as he called them, dogs, usually had “HM” owners. Felicia begged to disagree. But at any rate, Felicia picked up Sacha, who had been bitten by Max under her long spindly leg. She licked it when she stopped crying. And even though Felicia is often annoyed by Sacha, when she cries, there’s nothing more heartbreaking: the Queen of the house is in pain. Well, a day has passed, and Sacha is feeling better and now we’re all back to normal. The Queen feels better! Long live the Queen!