Well this last week was a zinger, in the hospital for four days, and boy did my good friend Josie ever step up – in a big way. Thank you Josie, I am so grateful and appreciate you so very much! This is her blog on the experience with Jackie Chan…

“First of all let me get the above role in perspective….I am Jackie’s slave-on-demand. There is no time to sit around. At 6am there is a gentle paw on my slumbering body urging me to wake up. Kelly tells me if I want to sleep in then just say, ‘Go back to bed Jackie’. I try that several times and the pawing gets more insistent. Oh well, good move to make my tummy flat I decide.

We venture out before people are awake, and before they put their feet on the floor to open their creaky front gates to let their scruffy, unruly dogs out for a self-walks. We start out early with fresh and excited emotions for new discoveries at 6am, without added pressure. Leisurely we pass a sleeping guard who doesn’t even move when footsteps approach., and venture out onto the twisty roads beyond what used to border rice paddies.

Jackie is enjoying being given a long rein to explore the roadsides and cars are few. Unfortunately discarded rubbish is a problem everywhere in Thailand, and it is not long before Jackie finds a succulent bone that has fallen out of a plastic bag laced with tomato sauce. That is 5 minutes of waiting round for me as she crunches through the whole bone, then the other half found a meter away…..let no shard remain!

As I contemplate on the natural sounds and smells around me, it clicks in my mind THIS IS THE REASON she wants to get up super early…..’clever dog’. It is a beautiful area here with little dark streams covered by the odd concrete bridge. In the backdrop of teak temples and housing projects. Always new sights around each corner…..As the walk gets to its final stages, people have opened their steely gates by now and other dogs approach us. One did have a muzzle and tried to ‘ride’ Jackie. She was having none of it though, two small timid dogs that immediately lie down on our approach and open their legs. Jackie sniffs and stands over the those ones proud of her newly acquired status!

She’s a very nervy dog around others and lets out little yelps. I sense her anxiety and keep the lead short and put my body between JC and the other dogs (occasionally getting twisted up in dog bodies and leads if interactions get too heated). On returning home, instructions stipulate it’s treats first for good behavior, then breakfast. But today is different.. she lies on her side, .contented and full from crunching her way through the roadside bones while the neighborhood dogs leer at her, some behind gates, and others not, as they say in Jackie Land…..first up is best dressed!!!”

Thank you again Josie, you are a Star!