Drivin' Mr. Shandy on the First Day of Spring

Fridays are my running around days. When I can, I take the dogs with me. They don't complain about my singing, being bored or even being hungry.

I have off of work so stuff like picking up the tax papers and taking the cats to the vet gets done on Friday.

Today was no exception and I had to run out to Scott's mom and dad's to drop off a baby gift for Scott's sister. As fate would have it, I was daydreaming or something (I have ADD; are you surprised?) and missed the turn for the county road to take me to the fun, windy, hilly county road on the way to Sussex. So my 40 minute ride was about 75 minutes.

Now, I'm sure I've mentioned before that Chance rides great in the car. He rides "shotgun" and props his right front leg on the arm rest and leans casually against the door like some sort of cool teenager. He likes to throw his head back and "smell the smells" out the window as we go by at 60 m.p.h.

Unless of course, we leave the city limits or we aren't taking the kids the school or running to the grocery store. When we travel on long trips, like the "Oh, nuts", I had this morning, he gets a little weird. Not panting, puffing chewing on stuff but he lays down on the front seat, head down and definitely doesn't smell out the window.

Part of me says that maybe he is getting car sick (um...ewww) but maybe he was taken on a long car ride and dropped out in the middle of nowhere and he had to run and run and run his little legs off to find his home but he got lost in the woods and....and....and....

Ok- I've gotten a little melodramatic but you can put your tissues away. He likes to run so presumably the reason he wound up at the shelter is that he ran away from his owners (again) and they just couldn't find him. But that doesn't explain the weirdness in the car but once we got back near our city limits he was fine again. Sitting up and watching the world go by and all that.

After we got home safe and sound he was back to his usual goofy self, teasing Te'a and trying to steal my lunch.

I should probably tell you too that if you are a prospective adoptive family out there lookin' at our boy thinkin' that you'll wait to see what he looks like all grown out and longhaired before you adopt him, I'm thinkin' you'd better put your application in quick before I give him another haircut and his hair gets any shorter.

See, on Tuesday when it was 70+ degrees, I took him outside and we used the trimmer thing on his haunches. He wasn't so much into having his shoulders or above trimmed with the trimmer. That I had to scissor. I like my hands the way they are thank-you-very-much and that is attached to my wrists and bite free.

As a result of my hack job trimming, his hair is sooooo curly and he is soooo adorable. If we still have this wonderful dog when it gets warm enough to swim (which I hope we don't - he is an awesome dog with and equally crazy clownish personality and deserves his own home), I can't wait to see what all the curls will look like when he is super-duper soaked to the skin.

So getting back to his silly personality. He is smiling soo much now. He wags all day long. There's a tiny piece of his personality that, like the shy kid in your Chem class, is hanging just on the precipice waiting to jump out at you. There's also the part of him that is NOT so shy. Like when he comes in from outside and you're at the computer typing up the daily ditty about him. He zooms up the stairs, flies down the hall, stops only for a nano-second to gather his muscles and launch every ounce of his fluffy sixty pounds on your lap and keyboard. (Seriously, just happened.) Arriving in your lap, licks your face, snuffles in your ear and cuddles in for the long haul.

In addition to being exceptionally goofy and lovable, he, like most dogs, is very intelligent. I had a thought here but I went back to add more pictures and I seem to have forgotten my point - damn ADD.

At any rate....he is oh so cuddly and squishy and furry. If there is no water in the water bucket, he finds the nearest toilet and actually flips the seat up to get a drink. Every now and again, you can hear a weird clunking sound coming from the downstairs bathroom. It's reasonably safe to say that there is no water in the bucket. Although, occasionally the bowl has been full and he just prefers the fresh cool water in the gigantic porcelain bowl.

It's been a while since I said this to my three readers but Thank you for reading, thank you for thinking rescue and please pass this along to anyone else who is thinking rescue too!

Now a little lighthearted spring humor....

On the first day of spring, a firefighter was working on the engine outside the station, when he noticed a little girl nearby in a little red wagon with little ladders hung off the sides, and a garden hose tightly coiled in the middle.

The girl was wearing a firefighter's helmet. The wagon was being pulled by her Fluffy Dog and her cat.

The firefighter walked over to take a closer look. 'That sure is a nice fire truck,' the firefighter said with admiration.

'Thanks,' the girl replied.

The firefighter looked a little closer. He noticed the girl had tied the wagon to her Fluffy Dog's collar and to the cat's testicles.

'Little partner,' the firefighter said, 'I don't want to tell you how to run your rig, but if you were to tie that rope around the cat's collar, I think you could go faster.'

The little girl replied thoughtfully, 'You're probably right, but then I wouldn't have a siren.