In 2008 I began a series of blog posts entitled The Muffin Saga about my dear doggie friend of 14 years, Muffin. There are 15 parts to this story about Muffin, my family and me. After numerous requests, I am again publishing the series, one part each Sunday for at least 15 weeks. I promise this time to complete the saga by adding parts XVI and XVII.
Muffin was intelligent, perhaps the most intelligent dog I have ever known. She swiftly accepted being walked on a leash, walking beside me at whatever pace I chose. During our walks she sometimes reverted to the survival habits she had acquired while being neglected on the farm where she grew up. At times she would leave the sidewalk and begin digging in the earth at its edge. Muffin was acting more like a chicken than a dog, scratching beneath the soil for insects and worms that she would eat. She continued to do this even with the fine cuisine we provided for her. I rather suspect that she had subsisted on small crawling creatures for most of her life. One seldom forgets survival skills.
Another of her survival skills was raiding garbage cans. To do this she had to escape the fence that surrounded the parsonage and church. It was a metal fence constructed of iron bars perpendicular to the ground. In the front of the yard the bars were too narrow for even a small dog to squeeze through. However, the fence at the back of the property had more space between the bars.
The first time I noticed Muffin outside the fence she was in the alley that ran behind the parsonage yard. She was digging through the garbage set out by Irma, our next door neighbor. I called Muffin from inside the yard and expected her to slide back in through the bars in the fence. However, I think Muffin was reluctant to expose her avenue of escape; she walked all the way around the property to the front gate and stood there, smiling and awaiting me to open the gate. As I said, Muffin was quite intelligent.
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