After a Few Days With Dad

Since our schedule is still fluctuating at this point, when Dorothy's father is over, Dorothy is never sure when he will be back, so she feels she has to play with him the ENTIRE time he is here.  Once we all live under the same roof, we are sure that Dorothy will realize that she is allowed a time-out every now and then from all the playing.

Last week her father was over two afternoons and nights in a row, so Dorothy went all out.  Plus the next morning he took her to the dogpark for even more running.

This was quite a gift to me, since that meant all Saturday Dorothy was resting from all the playing, so I could do things that didn't involve a bulldogge.

She slept all the rest of the day and only begrudgingly went out a few times to do her business.  Here she is around 8:00 that evening, still tired, as you can see.

Dorothy humming "It's a Hard Knock Life" as she snoozes:

Monkey In My Mouth

Nothing pleases Dorothy more than to find a treasure in the park.  She gets happy if the treasure is but a fine stick; but if the treasure is a stinky old ball, or some sort of dog or child’s toy, well then! – her glee and amazement know no bounds.

Yesterday she went to the park with her father and returned quite quickly.  Usually they will do three or four turns around the park, but this time she found a squeaky monkey on a park bench and so had to bring it home, STAT.

After giving it a rinse, we let her enjoy the monkey and make it squeak for a good hour or so.  But we took it away when she removed its rubber monkey tail from its rubber monkey body.

You can be sure that Dorothy will be checking the particular bench on which she found the monkey each time we go to the park from here on in.  Who knows what will be there next?!

Dorothy thinking, this is MY monkey; it is not YOUR monkey.

Rockin' Robin

One of the signs of spring in this part of the world is a robin hopping on lawn.  But apparently, our Dorothy is not sentimental when it comes to the changing of the seasons.  Yesterday, when in the park on a sunny afternoon in the seventies, Dorothy spotted a plump robin doing robin-y things, and went all jungle on us.  I wasn’t there to witness this spectacle – alas! – but I’m told that when Dorothy spied the robin over yonder, she moved her body an inch or two lower to the ground and began to stalk the robin, paw over paw, getting closer and closer, like a cartoon predator, until all of a sudden she couldn’t take the suspense and charged at the bird.

It turns out there was one little hitch to her stealthiness, and that was that while doing all the sneaking, she was still in full bulldogge breathing mode—i.e. grunting and snuffling and making a lot of nasal noises.  The robin, therefore, was not in any danger of meeting its demise.  But the story made me laugh and I can just picture Dorothy getting all Mighty Huntress in the middle of Center City.

I actually sympathize with the robin a bit, being the victim myself of a dog stalking on several occasions.  My friend’s Doberman, Manda, used to enjoy a bit of stalking while out in her yard in New Hampshire.  Her prey of choice?  Humans.  I’d be outside admiring the garden when I’d feel the hair rise on my neck and look over and see Manda half a football field away, her eyes locked on me, her legs moving forward in studied slow motion, getting closer and closer and closer.  Now Manda was a gentle, friendly beast, so I knew she would never do anything to me.  But there is something primal about being stalked that is unsettling, to say the very least.  There she’d be:  a Doberman lion on the Serengeti; and there I’d be:  a gazelle with an unfortunate economy of motion.  I was always a little relieved when the game ended and I was still upright.

Dorothy’s mother, I am told, is a stellar frog hunter, so hunting is in Dorothy’s genes.  Surprisingly, Dorothy will walk past a pigeon without giving it a second glance though, so there must be something about robins she does not like.  Perhaps she’s pro-earthworm?

Dorothy thinking, I didn’t like its beady little eye looking at me.

Speak Softly And...

To Dorothy, there is no greater pleasure than finding a worthy stick.  It is nearly impossible for her to pass by a stick on the sidewalk or ground and not pick it up.  And then, once it is in her mouth, she has no compunction against stopping right where she is in the middle of the sidewalk, lying down, and giving the stick a good gnaw or two.

Her liking for a stick comes in handy when I am trying to walk her back from the dogpark and she goes on a walk strike by flopping over on to her side.  If I can spot a stick nearby while Dorothy is in recline, I can pick it up and carry it just above her jumping reach, and she'll follow me all the way home making repeated circus-dog attempts to hover by my shoulder and grab the stick.

Once we get a few blocks away, I'll usually let her carry it.  Sometimes, she'll find a stick in Rittenhouse and carry it herself, all stick-proud.  Of course, people laugh, especially if the stick is bigger than she is...but Dorothy knows they are just jealous.
 

Dorothy thinking, you know you want this stick.

Choose Your Own Adventure

When Dorothy goes to the park with her father, they play a game called “Choose Your Own Adventure.”  This game, such as it is, consists of Dorothy going wherever in the park she wants to go.  She leads the way, and if she wants to go catty-corner, they go catty-corner.  If she wants to stop and lie down and chew on a stick, that is what they do.  If she wants to go sniff around inside the empty fountain, then sniff she will.  And as her father says, Dorothy likes to choose 4 or 5 adventures, and she likes for them all to “end in a squirrel.”

Of course, the one tiny problem with this game is that when I then take her to the park, I tend to be oblivious of  the course her last adventures took, and then get a little peeved when Dorothy tries to drag me in the fountain, or when she jumps from bench to bench, or cuts across a hedgerow.  I prefer the adventure of walking nicely along the path myself.  Call me stodgy.  

Dorothy thinking, my mom is a smidge stodgy.

Up

A month or so ago Dorothy became aware of another dimension while walking in Rittenhouse Park.  That actually sounds a lot more science fiction-y than I had intended.  What I mean is:  Dorothy discovered up.

She had acquired a new interest in the park squirrels, but the first few times she chased one to a tree, when it ran up to escape her fierce mandibles, Dorothy would walk around the tree looking for the squirrel on ground level.  Then one day one squirrel ran straight up the trunk without spiraling around it, and Dorothy followed the squirrel’s climb with her keen eyes and craning neck.

And then a whole (high) world blossomed.  She realized that she could search for squirrels up in branches, and birds too!  It was quite a revelation.  And now she often hunts in the great world of the above.  She will also look up a lot as we walk around the city.  Yesterday she became mesmerized by a flag waving in the breeze.  Was it a moment of patriotism, or was she estimating if she could jump high enough to grab it?  I’m not sure—she IS quite a talented jumper.

Dorothy thinking, oh how the squirrels love me!

Rats in Rittenhouse Square

"Does Dorothy have a prey drive?" you may ask.

Yes, yes she does.  I answered this in the affirmative to myself the other day as Dorothy was flying me like a kite.  She was zooming after a rat she spotted in the park at 9:00 pm and was pulling me with such strength and such speed, that I was sure that I would soon be flying out behind her like a horizontal Mary Poppins.  Turns out Bulldogge is STRONG.

I don't know what was going on in the park that night.  I have seen the occasional rat there before, but always on an evening when it was 95 degrees out even late at night, and I always assumed they were out looking for water and refreshment, something in the slurpee family mayhap.  But this night was a cold one.

"Do rats hibernate?" I mused as Dorothy spotted another rat in a tangle of rose bushes and tried to pull me behind her into the thorny thicket.  For if they do, maybe this was their last hurrah before slumber, a kind of rat rumspringa.

An alternative idea was that perhaps rat poison had recently been distributed throughout the park and these rats were all woozy from hemlock.

At any rate, I realized that Dorothy has perhaps inherited her mother Nancy's penchant for hunting and catching frogs, only being a city bulldogge, her prey of necessity was varmint.

I also realized that night that it was a very good thing I had looped her leash twice around my wrist.

Dorothy being walked by a park denizen in an empty fountain,

sniffing for Templeton:

Bulldogge By-Laws: The Soccer Ball Clause

Last Saturday, Dorothy returned from the dog park wanting to look up something in the Bulldogge By-Laws.  She was quite certain that under either Found Items, or Treasures, or Soccer Balls, or a Just Because clause, there existed an article which said something to the extent of:

• If a Bulldogge walks down to the dog  park, and finds there an unattended soccer ball in glorious red and white colors, then said Bulldogge is allowed to forego the remainder of her exercise session and run back home – as the crow flies – with the soccer ball in her mouth.

Because this clause had not been confirmed at the time, Dorothy was not allowed to leave with her treasure, and after we realized that she would do nothing but pace with the ball in her mouth along the fence by the gate hoping to sneak out and run home, we took the ball away from her and hid it up in a tree.  She did stand guard under the tree for about five minutes, but she eventually gave up and joined in with the canine merriment going on around her.

Apparently, soccer balls are Dorothy’s favorite!  I’m going to have to try to find her one that she can’t puncture.

Everyone has a soccer ball but me.

Dangerous Dorothy

We had a strange experience with Dorothy at the dog park a few days ago.  We arrived at the park and found about 12 or so other dogs there moseying about.  Dorothy immediately became immersed in a game of Frisbee (in fact, she kept snatching the Frisbee away from a man and his dog and trotting with it over to us all proud of herself), and then a game of tennis ball.  She didn’t really seem in the mood to play with the other dogs, perhaps because it was a little hot.  Anyway, after we had been there awhile I noticed that there was a woman in the park with her two dogs—one an old looking golden retriever with strings of drool hanging from its mouth, and the other a medium-sized white furry dog, perhaps a cockapoo.  Whenever Dorothy got inadvertently near one of her dogs, or vice versa, the woman would jog purposefully across the dog park to them, and stand in between her dogs and Dorothy.  She wasn’t doing this with any other dog, so it soon became obvious that my sweet little Dorothy was once again being mistaken for a pitbull, and a vicious one at that.

I watched with amazement as this happened about six or seven times, until finally the woman got tired of her CONSTANT VIGILANCE! and decided to bring her two dogs into the special fenced-off small dog area.  In other words, she brought her large golden retriever, mind you, in with the dachshunds and yorkies, rather than let them be ravaged by my “pitbull,” Dorothy.  !!!  As I said before, Dorothy wasn’t really in a dog mood, so wasn’t paying any attention to the other dogs, for the most part.  And in general, she is on the submissive side when it comes to other dogs.  If a dog is bothering her, she might let the dog know to back off, but when we are walking and she sees another dog, she almost always will lie down on her stomach and sometimes even roll over on her side or back.  My point, I suppose, is that leaving out the fact that she was misidentified as a certain breed of dog, her actions at the park were only threatening to the tennis ball (and anyone who tried to take the Frisbee away from her.)  It was very strange!

If I had written this entry on Wednesday, I would have ended it with the above paragraph and felt very preachy towards that woman about pitbulls and how it’s not so much a breed of dog that is the problem but the owner.  And I still feel that way.  However, when I was walking Dorothy in my neighborhood yesterday, a woman in her twenties was walking a pitbull who was the same coloring as Dorothy, and very pretty in her pink collar.  The woman said her dog was friendly and asked if she could say hello to Dorothy.  I said yes, since Dorothy was very eager to meet this dog.  They sniffed for about two seconds before the dog started VICIOUSLY snapping at Dorothy and making horrible growling/arrghing sounds.  I barely was able to pull Dorothy away from the jaws of the other dog in time.  And the annoying thing is that the owner of the dog didn’t even seem aware that anything was wrong!  She didn’t apologize, or say something to the extent of “That’s strange, she usually likes other dogs.”  Nothing.  Nada.  She just went on her merry way.  My guess is that she is new to dogs and had no idea that the sound her dog was making – plus its serious snapping and biting – was not a normal happy greeting between two dog-friendly dogs!

And I must admit that as I walked away my first reaction was to be like that woman in the dog park, and in the future resolve to keep Dorothy away from pitbulls on the street.  But I know that isn’t right.  In the dog shelters in Philly, the majority of the dogs available for adoption are pitbulls or pitbull mixes.  Some places screen better than others, but if you see a young person on the street with a pitbull, there is no way of knowing if they are an experienced dog owner, or even how well they know their dog.  But to be logical, the same is true for owners of any dog, not just pit mixes.  The guy I see with the german shepherd daily might know nothing about controlling his dog either.  And on occasion we pass a fawn-colored chihuahua who acts like he wants to go for Dorothy's jugular.  So I need to remind myself that an ill-behaved or dog-hostile dog isn’t breed-specific.

It was Dorothy's turn to be put into a box:

Later on in the evening after we had had the experience with the woman in the dog park, we were in the neighborhood park and met a man with a beautiful pitbull mix (named Dottie!).  She and Dorothy sniffed calmly enough, but the pitbull Dottie was very still, in a way that made me a little wary (she also had the clipped ears, which could be a sign that she was once used for fighting).  The friendly owner told us that he had just adopted Dottie a week ago and was still getting to know her.  We moved on and all was well.  Then Dorothy was happily wrestling with her favorite friend, Josie Beagle, when Sasha, a tiny brindle "pug" with Frenchie in it came up to join in.  Josie and Sasha started to run (we were holding on to Dorothy’s leash still so she couldn't really join in) when tiny Sasha snapped and started attacking Josie and both dogs had to be separated by their owners.  I know Sasha somewhat and Dorothy has played with her before and she’s always been a great little dog, but something set her off this time and she got angry.  Am I going to now condemn all pug/Frenchie mixes?  Of course not….  There just has to be a balance between monitoring Dorothy's dog interactions and letting her fight her own battles, so to speak.

And then last night Dorothy did get attacked – slapped on the nose by an angry purple cat! 

She was asking for it, dressing that way.

Social Dorothy

Dorothy went to the dog park again yesterday and absolutely loved it.  She eagerly walked the seven or so blocks to the park, and seemed to know exactly where we were going.  It is, sadly, rather rare for her to lead the way in the front with leash outstretched, but she led the way the entire trek, all eager like a normal dog!  (Just now, for example, when I took her around the block for a quick leg-stretch, most of the "walk" consisted of me dragging her behind me like a bag of cement.  The rest of the walk consisted of Dorothy lying down in the midst of smushed ginkgoes, trying to eat a few before I intervened.  It was when I had my hands in her mouth fishing out the ginkgo that a man passing-by noted:  "It is like you are the employee and she is the boss."  Yes.  Thank you for that observation, kind sir.  And hey:  I quit!)

But I digress.  Dorothy speed-walked to the dog park, and once there spent the first 30 minutes adorably playing frisbee with a 10 year-old girl.  The girl's dog, an Italian waterdog, wasn't very interested in the frisbee, so she and Dorothy paired up and had a fine old time.  I was a little wary at first, since Dorothy tends to get a bit too attached to frisbees and doesn't like to give them up to a human.  But as she seems to be in general with kids, Dorothy was very polite with this girl.  The girl threw the frisbee, Dorothy retrieved it and brought it back; the girl took the frisbee from Dorothy's mouth; Dorothy didn't bite her; the girl made Dorothy sit; Dorothy sat; and then she would throw the frisbee again.

Dorothy doesn't quite catch a frisbee in the air yet, but the day when she will do so is not too far off, I think.  For she has a freakish ability to jump straight up in the air out of nowhere, and will even do so on occasion on a walk.  She'll all of a sudden be at my eye level (and I am relatively tall) and then on the way back down will grab the leash near my hand and start a game of tug.  She especially likes to hold her own leash when we are safely back in my building, and is quite proud to walk herself up the hallway.

But after thirty minutes, the frisbee owner left, and Dorothy then ran around vigorously with the other dogs for thirty more minutes.  She even almost kept up with a matched set of two fleet boxers.  She met many a mutt and many a hybrid with "poo" in the title.

Sean and I were smitten by a tiny piglet-colored French Bulldog who sped around the yard as if his legs were sleek and not stumpy, his belly taut and not tubby, and his whole person the size of the heads of most of the other dogs there.  This French monsieur or mademoiselle had character!  S/he also did a fine job of greeting all the humans with wiggles and standing on hind legs to get closer to faces.  Very cute!

Dorothy even walked all the way home, only stopping twice to flop over on her side for a quick rest, and then getting up again without too much wheedling.  She is a very athletic and very social Dorothy!

Dorothy, resting up for her next dog park outing:

Dorothy at the Dog Park

We had a cool weekend, finally, and since Dorothy couldn’t use the heat as an excuse to collapse on the sidewalk, we decided to walk her the five blocks down to the dog park for some fun and frolic.  She walked all the way without complaint, and even got a few compliments on her new Red Sox leash!

Once we got inside the park, we took off her leash and she went running away to meet the other dogs.  Every few minutes or so she’d come back to where we were standing to check in, but she seemed to know the purpose of our visit and immediately began running and playing and doing her moves.

Here she is with Lupe, a dog rescued from the streets of Mexico, and Hendrix, a dog with fine ears. 

And here are a few other action shots.

It’s interesting to see what the dogs choose to do with their time in the dogpark.  One boxer spent his time racing around the perimeter—and he was FAST.  Sometimes other dogs ran with him, and sometimes he ran alone.  One large pitbull mix would go bark at the other dogs when they wrestled, so we called her The Ref.  She was black and white, too, so seemed made for her job.  Some of the dogs played ball, and some were more interested in standing around getting scritches from the humans. 

I’d say Dorothy ran for at least 45 minutes, if not longer.  I didn’t think she would make it back home on her own accord, but she waited to the next to last block before lying down for a quick rest.

A few days later she went back to the dogpark with Sean, and once again had a good time.  Apparently this time she was a little more aggressive, and more sure of herself amongst the other dogs.  Here she is playing with what looks like a stuffed black rag, but I've been assured is a dog.  By all accounts, it was biting Dorothy's cute hind legs, and she had finally had enough of that: 

Unfortunately, the heat has returned to Philadelphia, and when it is over 80 and muggy, Dorothy is not inclined to go on a long walk.  But I'm hoping to return to the dog park this weekend for Dorothy to continue her dog socialization and perfect her athletic moves.  Go Dorothy!

Finders Keepers

Last weekend Dorothy found a soccer ball in the park.  While we looked around to see if it belonged to anyone, Dorothy was all finders-keepers:  she figured out how to get her mouth around it, and then made a bee-line towards home.  It was the first time ever that she walked back from the park quickly, and in front of me at the end of the leash!  Except for the fact that she was trying to go home as the crow flies, diagonally, through traffic, it was one of the most enjoyable walks I have ever had with Dorothy.  She held her head high so that the soccer ball wouldn’t touch the ground, and seemed very proud with her find.

Eventually, the soccer ball was deflated by Dorothy’s sharp teeth, but she sure had fun with it while it lasted.  Dare I say she bent it like Beckham?

Don't even think about touching this ball!

Wanted: One Hellhound, Preferably Vicious & Ungodly

A couple of weekends ago we were taking a leisurely stroll through the park finding sticks for Dorothy to chew when we heard a bit of a ruckus.  A young-ish man was delivering a sermon via megaphone; he had a small crowd of people listening to him, and he also had a few people walking through the park trying to round people up to head in his direction (they nipped at our heels and we said no thank you; black sheep we).

For the most part I didn’t pay much attention to the sermon, although I heard enough to note that it was of the hell and brimstone variety in which one’s possible torment is enumerated upon with great (and rather unseemly) glee.

Not too far from the preacher, we reached a wall upon which a group of arty youth were sitting.  They asked if they could meet Dorothy, and since there is nothing Dorothy likes better than a meet n’ greet, she happily obliged.  She kissed and wiggled and basically charmed the bunch.  In fact, one of them asked if she could stay and be their mascot for awhile.  He gestured to the sermonizing megaphone fellow and said that in light of all that, he felt they needed Dorothy to stay and be their Hellhound.

We declined their offer and headed home, but I thought as we went that Dorothy would have made a very fine Hellhound indeed. 

Dorothy, thinking she could too be a hellhound:

Dorothy Encounters Boot Camp

At seven months, Dorothy is still an early riser.  She seems to be a big believer in the early bird getting the worm, and rising and shining and all that.  So sometimes we are at the nearby park by 6:15 a.m., and despite what you non-morning people might think, we are not nearly the only ones there.  There's always a few dogs being walked, and people cutting through the park on their way to work.  There are usually old women speed-walking in chatty pairs, and the people who spend the night in the park are often up and doing their ablutions, for lack of a better word.

Dorothy is not phased by any of these folk and generally will not pay any of them any mind.  However, there is one group of early risers that intrigues her -- the boot campers.  Several times a week there is a group of people taking a boot camp exercise class in the park.  There are about twelve of them, and they follow the barked commands of their leader as he gets them to do various sprints and push ups and other exercises.

Dorothy will often stop and just stare at what they are doing.  A few days ago as we came to the entrance of the park, the boot campers were running around the outside of the park, and when they reached the entrance we use, they would lie down on their backs (on the sidewalk upon which Dorothy often piddles, might I add) and put their legs up at a 90-degree angle from the sidewalk, lower them to a hover about 6 inches off the sidewalk, and then bring them back up to the 90-degree position.  Dorothy just could not figure out what they were doing!  She stopped and stared.  She sort of half-crouched half-tip-toed closer to them.  She sat again.  She tilted her head.  She looked at me.  She looked back at the people on their backs.  It was quite funny!  She really wanted me to let her go up to some of the exercisers so she could start giving them her "are you okay?" smooches, but I thought it best not to interrupt them.

I had a hard time getting her moving again after that!    A few days later we came across an old man doing what I assume was tai chi.  He was moving very slowly and Dorothy thought that maybe he, too, needed her help.  He did not.  You never know what strange thing you might see in the park.

Dorothy is trying to understand boot camp, but she just doesn't get it:  

Have they not heard of the sidewalk sit?

The Early Bird Gets The Worm

Dorothy is still pretty much an early riser.  Although every once in a while she will sleep in till 7 -- and once she even slept until 8:00! -- in general 6:00 - 6:15 is her favorite time to wake up and get the show on the road.  The show being me.  Her preferred method of waking me up is to either start licking my face and ears with her hot tongue, or perform a body slam on my face.  Neither is a very gentle awakening.

The first month I had to rush her out the door the minute she awoke like she was a bomb about to explode.  Nowadays, we still go out first thing, but it is not quite a matter of life or death.  As you know, Dorothy is not a walker, so some mornings we don't make it all the way to the park.  She'll do her business and then want to return home for a tasty breakfast.  If we do go all the way to the park, though, this is our view upon entering it:

It's a lovely city park on the whole, although I do have to make sure Dorothy doesn't run over and leap on to the few people who are sleeping in it.

Here is Dorothy looking about, seeing what dogs are out already, or what doormen might be willing to ooh and ahh over her.  She is also deciding what corner of a building she should choose on which to read her morning's p-mail:

And then we walk the 1.5 blocks home.  If I'm lucky, she walks the whole way with or without coaxing.  If I'm not lucky, she will go on strike and sit down and not budge.  Here she is, having made it home, waiting for a piece of kibble on our doorstep:

Good girl, Dorothy!

Dorothy Does Dogpark

Last Friday, when it was a cool and humane 80 degrees instead of the 102 it is today (oh when we were young and times were merry!), Dorothy and I set out on an evening walk.  It wasn’t going to be an ordinary walk, I decided; instead, we would head towards the dogpark and see how far we got.  The dogpark is a fenced-in area about 7½ blocks from my apartment.  There’s a small area for small dogs and a large area for all other dogs and small dogs with a napoleon complex (you know who you are).  The small dog area was where my pug, Tulip, had her monthly pug meet-ups, and the first few years we often walked down just so she could be off-leash and “socialize” (and yes, for those of you who knew the middle-aged and then elderly Tulip, by “socialize” I mean walk around greeting the people and begging for treats).

Anyway, the walk to the dogpark is very do-able for a normal dog; but as readers of this blog know, Dorothy is not too keen on an outdoors walk.  So I thought maybe we’d go halfway and then each time hereafter walk farther.  But the evening was cool and fine for walking.  And I had the clicker with me, which always makes Dorothy concentrate a bit more on the task at hand.  So we got closer and closer to the dog-park, until we were only a few blocks away and I knew we were going to make it (cue "Chariots of Fire" music here).

Lo and behold we were at the dogpark gates!  Dorothy was suspicious.  I had to carry her through the gates, because she was having none of them.  However, once we were inside, she was curious.  The area is actually pretty big, although its surface is a mixture of pebbles and dust with the occasional shade tree here and there, and benches around the edges (unfortunately, when the wind blows, clouds of dust billow around the park, so it is not unlike taking one’s dog for a romp in the Sahara.  Note to self: don’t wear contact lenses to park Ever.)  After a few dogs had greeted Dorothy and she seemed comfortable, I took her leash off.  

And did Dorothy immediately go check out the dogs, or start to run, or pay attention to the dogs who had come up to check her out?  No, no she did not.  What she did do was go around to all the benches, and scramble up on the bench if there was room, and if there wasn’t room, she scrambled up on the people who were sitting on the benches.  And once there:  she gave kisses.  So while the big dogs galloped and the medium dogs trotted and the small dogs scurried and gamboled, Dorothy sat on benches and smooched.

After about twenty minutes, however, she began to be curious about what her fellow creatures were doing (and no doubt began to be a bit dry-mouthed and chapped-lipped from all the kissing), and ventured forth to join their ranks.  She was very savvy about it for the most part.  She was interested in the dogs who had sticks, and she was interested to see if they would give their sticks to her.  So she would tentatively and politely nibble on an edge and see what the reaction was.  If negative, she would go on her way; if positive, she would tighten her hold on the free end of the stick!  At one point she started running around going crazy and letting out all her energy – and Dorothy, I discovered, is a fast runner!  She left many a dog in the dust, until she was finally overtaken by an Irish Wolfhound named Rocco.

There were a lot of nice dogs there, too: a very low-to-the-ground Basset Hound, a friendly fat blue pitbull named Benny, who was wearing a spiffy orange bandana and whom all the people there seemed to know well, many labs and retrievers, some viszlas, a pair of fat puggles, and many more.  Dorothy had a good time, all in all, and she especially enjoyed getting fed water from a nice lady’s water-bottle.  That was fun!

Our return walk home was at tortoise speed, but that was to be expected, since a good hour and a half had elapsed since we left home.  I did have to carry Dorothy on the penultimate block, where she lay down panting, but after such an excursion, I was happy to do it.  Now if the temperature would only drop a bit, we’ll attempt dogpark trip #2!

Dorothy, ready to go to the dogpark again:

Pastoral Scene with You and Your Partner (AND A BULLDOGGE!)

It is 85 degrees out--one of the first warm days of the season.  You and your honey get out the old blanket and carry it to the nearby park so that you can lie down and soak up the rays while cuddling.  Maybe you have a picnic that you plan on unpacking later, or maybe not.  But what might be missing from this scenario?

A BULLDOGGE!!!!!!

Well never fear, because one has appeared straining at the end of her leash, and she is about to make your blanket the scene of a threesome.  With a leap and a bound she wedges herself between you and your mate, scattering what is there to be scattered, and yes, scrabbling you a bit with her nails.  Let the kisses begin--and oh, they do.

This is what has been happening repeatedly lately, as the weather is warm and the park -- aka Dorothy's toilet -- fills up with lounging folk.  I don't let Dorothy divebomb people until they give me the okay, mind you, but once they beckon, she is there in a flash!  She loves to kiss strangers, and she seems to love to kiss kissing strangers even more.  She will either wedge herself between people, if they are lying down, or jump into laps if they are sitting up, and smooch away.

She'll pause every now and then, of course, to give me a look which says something to the extent of, "I knew parks weren't just for walking!  They're for lying down and kissing and stick chewing!  Liar!"  Etc.

And then the only way I can get her away from the picnic is to bribe her with a hansel-and-gretel-like trail of treats.  And then only sometimes.

So if you live in Center City Philadelphia, and you have in mind a little bit of romantic lollygagging--prepare to be attacked by the lovin' of Miss Dorothy Hyacinth.  It -- well -- it comes cheap.

Dorothy, wondering if that is you she sees kissing on a blanket: