...would happen. Lucky the longhaired Chihuahua would hook up big time, get his leashed pimped, his doggie biscuits buttered, the whole bit. I tried to hook up with the guy. I even broke the first rule of first dog-dating and cuddled. See evidence below.
Today, I caught a glimpse of Lucky as I was exiting the supermarket. He wasn't in a fancy dog carrier bag, as I imagined he would be, nor was his new master some hunk that fell off the pages of an old Marboro ad (when there was more than 1 cowboy in the pictorial.) It was worse.
He was in the company of another dog that I fell INSTANTELY in love with. A beautiful liver Doberman Pinscher. Talk about hot. For a second I felt Lucky recognized me - he glanced at me and then quickly returned his attentions to dobey. I don't blame him. I couldn't take my eyes off his new friend. In fact, I had to duck behind a shrub to continue the shameless oogling.
After a few seconds of my embarrasing antics, a nice older lady emerged from the market and fetched her two charges. Off they went down the street and towards where the oceanview condos are.
Good for Lucky. He got some deck.
...and it made me so sad. And mad.
A beautiful lab hit by a car. Where were its owners?
[insert anguished scream]
It was on a highway so I'm sure the person who hit it, if there is a God, felt like crap having to do it. Not a good situation for anyone, pooch or person.
[The sign reads: All dogs go to heaven. I received it as I was writing this entry. The photo was emailed to the team by our rugby coach, Peter Rizzo, who saw it, of all places, in the land down under. Sheesh.]
...is my obsession as of late. Or maybe it's the other way around. He seems to like me, this magnificent beast in a...cage.
What does that do to a dog?
Just what kind of emotional damage has this guy suffered? (Emotional nothing - Just thinking about life in a cage makes my back, neck and wrists ache.) And is it permanent? I had a friend who would only adopt mature (5+ years), severely abused dogs hoping beyond hope she'd rehabilitate them, but could never get them past house training nevermind, in one case, biting.
I also have a human friend who calls the half-way house "boyfriend store." In fact, the father of her bundle of joy spent much of the baby's childhood behind bars. I mention this because maybe there is a divine happiness that redeems any strife that accompanies adopting a previously caged dog.
I dunno. He's mad cute and friendly. But looks aren't everything - certainly not to dogs. (Hmmm...maybe I should ease up on the weight training and have a slice of velvet cake or three.)
Shepherd indeed.
...meaning I've been eye-ing strays.
Marine Drive here on the island is the main north-to-south artery. Its southern-most spot is where Magellan landed on March 5, 1521, not far from where I grew up. As the road stretches northward on the west, it winds across the verdant valleys of the southern villages through the marshes of the central coast never venturing far from the seaside. In the north, it traverses the villages built on the flatness that was once a part of a great reef.
Marine Drive never quite skirts the island's edge on the north and eastern shores; in fact, as a tail between a dog's hindlegs, it sheepishly loops itself southward avoiding what most would argue might be a natural thing in the realm of road building - to hug the clifflines. (You know, if they did it on the Amalfi Coast...) I supppose the bravest Marines must know when death is not part of the adventure they call life and so we'll forgive the drive's anticlimatic genuflection to the Marianas Trench. Like something from both outer and deep space, it looms precariously close to this rocky coast, insinuating its unchallenged blue-black depth. It is much deeper than Everest is high and on the surface is, quite simply, just damn scary. No person or road, however well he, she or it might be travelled, wants to get too close to that part of our ocean.
Neither do stray dogs. No regular supply of food to forage in these parts.
The strays I am speaking of are west-end dogs. There must be a strain that got to the island that is part fox - these are really foxy guys. I think maybe I'll take a run along Marine Drive sometime soon to check them out, see if I get some petting action.
You know, it worked on the Amalfi coast once.
...and the Neapolitan Mastiff below that I dragged off the Dogtime.com "Categories" menu on the left, (see "Ages and Stages") looks to me like Ellen Burstyn.
I'm thinkin' the film "Resurrection."
I don't know that dogs look like their owners right off the bat - I think that owners evolve to match their dogs. Dalmatians, for example, are born with spots; women don't come into the world with matching print coats. But some pooches really do look like real people and, if you ask me, likely have personalities to match their doppelgangers. So it is with caution that I am approaching this German Shepherd I cruised the other day.
He looks waaayyy to much like an ex-boyfriend. Cute, lanky, long-torsoed and sharp-profiled. But the walls! It does not surprise me that I met this dog from behind a fence - people and pooches are always on opposite sides of them.
Lord, I could tell you stories.
