There are mornings when Jackie is just disinterested in having his breakfast. And that distresses us. It's a sign that not all is well with the little fellow, despite that he's perky and playful and wants attention and behaves normally in other respects. There are no mornings, none whatever, when Jillie is disinclined to eat. If she ever feels under-the-weather it would be difficult to discern; she is ready and eager to eat -- anything at any time -- it's just her way.

 

Because she's such a chunky little dog, I try to see that she gets less to eat than her brother, despite her robust appetite. She weighs a good 20% more than he does. Typically his meals are slightly larger than hers. When he finishes his meals he has no appetite for anything more. When she polishes off hers in half the time that he takes, she's raring to go for more.

 

None of their meals are exactly straightforward to begin with.  Pre-breakfast they eat little, very little, pieces of cheese. For breakfast they have kibble, over the kibble tiny pieces of melon to 'soften' the kibble, and a sprinkling of cooked chicken to enliven the taste for them. If Irving is having soft-boiled eggs for breakfast I hard-boil an egg to halve it between them, well chopped up. If he's having scrambled eggs, an egg is scrambled for them as well.

 

When we return from our afternoon hike through the forest trails in the ravine which takes us typically around an hour and a half, they get a little salad of chopped cucumber, bell pepper and tomato. In the evening they have kibble again moistened with chicken soup and more chicken sprinkled on top. But it's the second course they're really interested in; cauliflower, broccoli, bell pepper, cucumber, tomato chopped into little bowls.

 

 

There's an assortment of very small cookies or doggie treats that Irving always has on hand when we're out in the ravine. Two each will end up with Jackie and Jillie throughout the course of our tramp through the woods, and the remainder go to other dogs we happen to come across on the trails. Jackie is taller than his sister and lean and muscular. Jillie is shorter, thicker than Jackie and always cadging food at the table and despite my protests, she's rewarded with table food.

 

It's one of those 'oh well!' situations. Irving keeps promising not to give her food in addition to what they already get but doesn't abide by his promises. We're concerned about her weight but can't seem to find it in us to be as strict as we should be about her food intake. She has boundless energy; when the two begin to play-fight she's as vigorous as her brother. She's able to leap decent heights like her brother. Different metabolisms and differing personalities.

 

When we were out in the ravine this afternoon we realized we can see notable colour changes from day to day. Just as toadstools have the capacity to emerge from the soil atop decaying woody fibre ovenight, so too does the leaf mass turn swiftly from green to autumn colours. Particularly the birch, the poplars and the maples and the sumac. Hawthorns are well on their way to being leaf-nuded and the wild apple trees are quickly following suit. Oaks, hackberry and beech are laggards, but they're getting there in more ochre-tinted colours.

It's been another absolutely beautiful day of sun, wind and down-drifting leaves. In some areas the forest floor resembles a treasure chest of crisply-coloured gems. The forest pines are also driven to surrendering their dead needles to the array of deciduous trees abandoning their foliage, leaving a mat of orange needles thickly coating the trails.