Liquorice enjoyed herself this morning while I picked some zucchini, a couple of cucumbers, a few small tomatoes from vines nearing the end of their crop and a handful of raspberries. Liquorice ate the raspberries, one of her favorite treats. She had been romping through the long dew covered grass hunting imagined prey and I had seen her bounding through the longish grass that I lazily had not yet cut. Her Newfy ears rising with each bound and staying aloft as her head descended. Her front paws, splashing the dew up and all around on their forward strokes and flicking dewdrops in all directions as each stride was completed. Liquorice, grinning with her pink tongue flapping from the side of her mouth, was in heaven as body moved rhythmically through her own private “cloudburst”. She then spent time running and rolling on the back lawn I had mown the previous evening. She was not the beautiful, fluffy young pup that had earlier greeted the new day. She now looked disgusting! Her coat made spiky by the dew and she was covered in fine green grass clippings but I must admit she looked like she had really enjoyed herself. I took the small bounty our garden had yielded inside except the raspberries; they stayed outside, inside Liquorice. I put the kettle on for a much-needed first coffee fix of the day while Liquorice lay on the back verandah. I did a couple of minor chores and decided to take our puppy a little treat.
By now she was lying, sphinx-like, quite relaxed, on the wet grass contentedly watching some native Wood ducks grazing on the lawn nearby. As I bent over to pick up my boots, there, on the painted concrete floor of our back verandah, where our pup had been lying, was the wet image of Liquorice, lying on her left side, “guarding” my boots! Her hindquarters, the gentle curve of her hind leg going down to her hock, angling off to her back paw. Her front left leg, at right angles to her chest with her right paw, a wet patch separate and just in front of her left paw. Her neck and head and little muzzle pointed toward the house. I could almost make out her earflap, as though it may have been a little wetter than her muzzle. The only feature not clearly visible was her tail. There were numerous little, unconnected moist spots where her tail might have been, as if she were unsettled laying there in that spot. Even the fine green grass clippings from the lawn were left behind.
It was as if she had walked off and left her shadow behind.
Arthur Witten
Liquorice