Labrador - Nov 25 2025

 

Labrador

Nov 25 2025

She curls up;

a tight ball of fur,

back to the wind

nose burrowed into her tail.

My dog in winter.

An outside dog

who is welcome in

but prefers the cold.

I open the door

and step aside invitingly;

she looks up 

with those big brown eyes,

thumps her tail a few times,

then settles back as before.

She is even named for the north;

her breed’s origin

in a bleak land of stunted trees

and the cold north Atlantic. 

Where her kind once swam,

a fisher’s companion

retrieving fish his net had lost,

her big webbed paws

and rudder-like tail

purpose-fit for the job;

a working dog

keen to start each day.

I envy her toughness

admire her all-weather design.

But still, could she survive without me?

Learn to hunt,

evade the wolves,

find a place, a pack, a mate?

Or have 20 millennia

of domestication

made us inextricable?

Man’s best friend,

dogs’ demigod.

She will come in, eventually.

And we will cuddle up in bed,

her warm body 

too hot 

for me to sleep well,

but her presence there

too comforting to resist.

           This poem is more Skookum than either Rufus or Peanut. A really tough old girl! 

           She passed a year ago, at the ripe old age of 15 1/2. 😢