Spring Cleaning

It’s spring cleaning season. That magical time of year when you open a closet, get hit in the head with a badminton racket from 1993, and decide it’s time to start selling things on eBay. This time around, I dusted off my old Canon T90 35mm film camera. Hadn’t used it in over 15 years. I’m not saying it was prehistoric, but I half expected it to have a floppy disk slot and smell faintly of dial-up internet.

Before listing it, I figured I should run a test roll through it to make sure it still functioned and didn’t spontaneously combust from shock. So I popped in some film, pointed it at the nearest random thing (a rock, probably), and started clicking away.

That’s when Roxie sprang into action.

Now, you need to understand—Roxie is our English Shepherd. She considers herself head of Homeland Security, Chief of Barn Operations, and Supreme Commander of Backyard Intelligence. No movement goes unnoticed. No behavior goes unjudged. And now, apparently, no camera goes uninvestigated.

The moment that Canon let out its first mechanical click, she froze like she’d just spotted a fox sneaking into the henhouse. Her eyes locked onto it with laser precision. Her ears perked up so fast I think I heard the wind change. As I walked, snapping more test shots, she stalked the camera like it was an unstable fugitive. I swear, if it had so much as shifted in my hand, she would've launched a full takedown operation and wrestled it into a crate for questioning.

She circled. She stared. She positioned herself between the camera and the livestock, just in case it made a break for the goats. The message was clear: “You better behave, fancy box. I'm watching you.”

And in the middle of all that ridiculous security detail, I suddenly saw her. I mean really saw her. That little fuzzball we brought home last summer was gone. In her place was this majestic, slightly unhinged, stunning farm dog. She used to fit in my grandson’s lap like a floppy plush toy. Now she’s all grown up and walks around like she’s got her own security clearance and an opinion on zoning laws.

And she doesn’t just follow the rules of the farm. Oh no. She enforces them with military precision.

Unless, of course, the rule applies to her.

Because Roxie is above the law. She’s not bound by mere mortal expectations like "stay off the couch" or "don’t steal the cat’s food." She’s a sovereign entity. Her Highness, Empress Roxie of the Land Between the Fence Posts. And she answers to no one.