Markus Anecdotes - Roxy the snow dog, it’s a dog’s life

Written by Markus with photos by Markus

Since a couple of months we have a new dog. Her name is Roxy and by now she’s 6 months old.

Coming from an animal shelter, the first few months of her life were challenging. But that changed to the extent that I’ve become jealous of the life she has now.

Of course she’s out little princess and her happiness makes us happy, but sometimes I wonder “If only I was a dog”.

Her daily routine is as follows:

She wakes up in her own bed. Not a dog bed. No no. She has her own single person bed, with feather blankets and pillows. Not that we planned this, but she simply claimed one of the guest rooms and the bed therein.

The door to the garden opens and there she finds her best friend waiting: Benji, the neighbor’s cat. They run around the garden, chasing away any birds that dare sit in “her trees” or on “her lawn”. Once cleared of these evil flying dinosaurs, they play together, rolling around in the grass, hiding behind trees or sit in a bush.

This continues till one of “Roxy’s humans” wake up and wander into the kitchen. Benji and Roxy quickly take their place in the kitchen, hoping to grab a morning snack. And they often do. While Benji nibbles away on some foie grass, Roxy gets a piece of ham.

Then it’s time to sleep for our dear Roxy. Benji leaves to guard the neighborhood while Roxy takes a nap at the fireplace or on the couch.

Come noon, it is break time. Time to visit the forest and she knows it. After a short 5-minute car drive, we arrive at the forest. Not just any forest. It is a dog forest, that the government dedicated to dogs. Here our dogs can roam free in a fairytale like forest of approx. 50 acres. In the middle there is a one-acre sand opening. As the park is dedicated to dogs, they run around without leash, sniffing every tree, collecting sticks and of course, play with each other. Somehow, only very rarely fights break out due to meeting and mingling this often, all dogs there are very well socialized.

Often, you’ll see about a dozen dogs running around in groups, playing, while their owners hang around in their own flock, chit chatting about, you can guess, their dogs. Some bring children, but they appear to be ignored, especially when puppies of a few months old are running around. Some toddlers become part of the group of dogs, running alongside them and laughing.

After one or two hours it is time to go back. Along the way, there is a restaurant that has a barbeque outside. Here they sell chicken sate and hot chocolate for humans and dried pig ears for the dogs. Driving pass the food stalls is almost impossible and Roxy will stand up straight at the car window, looking back and forth, clearly wanting to go there. And not surprisingly, you will find more dogs here that run around unleashed, playing, sniffing, and looking around.

Once home, it is again time for Roxy to take a quick nap. But not very long as Benji once again walks into the house and wakes Roxy up by rubbing its head against Roxy’s head. They then, as a team, will walk around the house as if making sure it is safe, and with often quick excursions into our garden, and also other people’s gardens.

Around 6pm, it’s dinner time. We don’t allow her to beg for food, so while we eat dinner, Roxy often heads out to the neighbor’s house where Benji lives. What happens here, we are not sure of, but around 7:30 pm, Roxy returns and goes straight to sleep on the couch in front of the TV.

This continues till about 10pm, where a quick run around in the garden occurs once again or on every odd day, we walk her around in the neighborhood, again, meeting other dogs, and sometimes one weird dude that walks around with a red Santa Clause hat and a rabbit on a leash.

Once back, Roxy heads out to her room and her bed and sleeps till around 2 or 3 am. Then a quick toilet break in the garden and barking at some birds. Then it’s back to bed only to wake up to another day with the same routine. It’s a dog’s life that I’m jealous of.