Me: The Boxer on the Mainland* who had the bucket list has died.
Tierce: Huh?
Me: Boxer. Bucket list. Dead.
Tierce: What’s a bucket list?
Me: It’s a collection of things you want to do before dying.
Tierce: What’s ‘dying’.
Me: We’ve had this discussion before. Never mind.
Tierce: Well, I’ve got a lot of things I want to do.
Me: Like what?
Tierce: Run loose.
Me: You’ve done that. In fact, we let you run loose for your birthday.
Tierce: Run loose again.
Me: Uh, sure. Anything else?
Tierce: Cheese.
Me: You had some cheese. We gave you some for deigning to come back from the yard.
Tierce: More cheese.
Me: Right. Any other ideas?
Tierce: Stinky fish**
Me: You’ve had stinky fish.
Tierce: More stinky fish.
Me: This is getting a little repetitive. Let’s see what we’ve experienced together. In no particular order.
- Bicycling
- Bicycling in a trailer
- Kayaking
- Travelling in a big ferry
- Travelling in a small ferry
- Driving in a car
- SCA events
- Farmers markets
- Local fairs
- Downtown Nanaimo, Victoria
- The Richmond Night Market
- The vet
- The groomer
- The dog park
- Doggy daycare
- Dog expos
- Swimming pools
- The ocean
- Lakes
- Rivers
- Hiked up a mountain
- Conformation dog shows
- Agility
- Clicker training
- Trick training
- Lure coursing
- Go-to-ground fun matches
- Obedience training
- Canada day celebrations
- Geocaching
- Zombie walks
- Visiting other people’s houses
Tierce: Some of those were fun. Some really sucked.
Me: Yeah, but that’s life, in all its glory.
Tierce: Life should include more cheese and off-leash running.
Me: Would that it did.
Tierce: Want to see my boot list?
Me: Your what?
Tierce: Boot list. Boots smell better than buckets and you can put things in them.
Me: Like the time you dropped your biscuit in my shoe?
Tierce: Yeah. Like that. It’s ideal for hiding things.
Me: Uh, sure.
Tierce: Okay, here goes:
- Run off leash
- Find another bacon wrapper in the garbage
- Eat cheese
- Get the rest of the stinky fish
- Run off leash
- Get my equal share of pizza
- Eat cheese
Have more friends on Facebook than you- Figure out how to open the door myself
- Eat the cat crunchies at the side of the house
- Be able to go up on the landlord’s deck whenever I want
- Eat cheese
Me: Well, that was interesting. You repeated yourself. Several times.
Tierce: I repeated the important things as they occurred to me.
Me: I see. You do realize that some of these things will never come to pass if I can help it, right?
Tierce: You’re just not supportive.
Me: Of you getting worms from eating cat poop? No. Getting run over because you’re off-leash on the Parkway***?
Tierce: YOLO.
*Vancouver, BC and its suburbs are known collectively as ‘The Mainland’ or ‘The Lower Mainland’
**Tierce means dried anchovies
***Highway that bypasses Nanaimo
