Sometimes I fall asleep when reading and either I wake up with my glasses on or I take them off without realizing I’m taking them off.  Sometimes I find them under my pillow, sometimes I find them on the floor . . not good.  Last week Vince and I went to Wal-Mart and I was going to get the over the counter reading glasses and use those in bed and take my good glasses off and put them somewhere safe.  Vince decided I should go into the vision center at Wal-Mart and talk to them before spending $9 on a pair of over the counter reading glasses.

They got my prescription from Missouri and the lady explained that with a stigmatism, I probably would not be happy with the over the counter glasses but they could make me a pair of reading glasses for about $40.

While talking to the lady helping me, she was telling me that one of her goats had triplets the night before so we started talking about goats.  She was telling me all the different kinds of goats and which kind I should get if I wanted this and which kind I should get if I wanted that.  Then the conversation took this direction:

The Lady: Of course, you’ll need a dog!
Me: We have a dog.
The Lady: Oh, great! What kind of dog do you have?
Me: A mini-dachshund.

I wish you could have seen the look on her face.  I was joking about Speck being a farm dog but I could see she was trying to think of a way to tell me nicely that Speck might not be up for the job of herding goats.

Does he not look like he’s to the job of being a working dog on the farm?  You have to excuse him .. he just woke up and wasn’t quite with the program yet.

But, he is improving.  We have what I call cockleburs and Vince calls sand spurs and the neighbor calls “stickers”.  Speck steps on one at least twice a day.  At first, he stopped dead in his tracks and whined.  I thought he had hurt his leg, then realized what the problem was and I would pull it out of his foot.  Then he would walk but limp like he had a broken leg.  When I had gone to let the neighbor’s dog out, he stepped on one.  He’s a big old lab and I saw when he stepped on it but he stopped, chewed on his foot for a minute to get it out, then slung his head from side to side to spit it out.  I said to Vince “That’s what a dog is supposed to do!”.

Yesterday, Speck stepped on a bur and before I could even bend down to help him, he chewed it out, slung his head to spit it out!  He’s learning to be a country dog.

I can tell you one thing . . in the summer I almost always go barefooted but I will not be doing that around here with these stickers.  They are so painful!