A Girl and Her Stick
Posted on September 28, 2021 Posted by John Scalzi 11 Comments

This branch from a dead tree fell into the yard today, and Charlie was very very very excited, because there are very few things in the world she likes more than a really big stick. Sadly for her, it was a little too unwieldy for her to pick up and trot around with. I broke it into manageable pieces, tossed one over to her for her recreation, and took the rest to the fire pit in the back yard for future bonfires. Even so, for a brief shining moment, Charlie had the biggest stick ever. It was a good day.
— JS
Aw, what a good girl! Gotta love a giant stick <3
Good dog! That’s awesome. I see that all the time on trails, dogs get this massive stick, it’s torquing their head hard just to drag it because they never find the balance point, and now it’s caught between two trees, hahaha.
Is that a good stick, Charlie…?
Good job, Charlie!
That was our miniature schnauzer’s favorite thing when he was a puppy, “Picking up sticks!” He always grabbed one 5 times his own length but to his credit he knew exactly where the stick pile was.
Fortunately (or perhaps more like sadly) in the last half dozen years or so we’ve had to have a 100’ tall tulip poplar, two blue spruces and four silver maples felled. The maples were the primary stick generators. There are still two left along the back of our place that are coming down next year.
There are mid-1960s neighborhoods like ours in which they planted all those fast-growing trees that have a 50-60 year lifespan all over Eastern America.
There is noting more entertaining then watch a dog deal with a branch to big to carry but they refuse to give up
Awwwwww! :)
Thinking of Thurber’s Snapshot of a Dog.
Mmmm, reminds me of that one horse tiktok
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMRvUMM7D/
Dog heaven. :-)
I follow Rex the TV Terrier on Twitter, and love the stick of the day. An example “In the lovely post meridian sun, I found todays #stickoftheday, a rimose, mucilaginous piece of Sugar Maple. It’s nectarous phloem easily accessible due to its lack of bark, this confectionery viand was a delectable treat.” Charlie and Rex would have a lot to talk (bark?) about. https://twitter.com/rexthetvterrier/status/1443349376307499012