More Dog Games

We had an epic bout of the game Moving Scooby-Doo yesterday. It was sunny, one of the handful of sunny days in the past month, and my best friend Shila came over for a walk around the Loop. Well, I guess you could call it a walk, although Shila and I collapsed to the ground to soak up the rare winter sun about every 50 feet... Inspired by two people to root for him, Chet carried Scooby down a steep hill, along the trail through head-high sumac, and almost to the turn in the trail where we descend to the Chute. It was amazing. At this rate we'll get Scooby home long before spring. Shila really digs Chet, and the feeling's mutual. Truth be told, he loves everyone--almost. I've seen Chet refuse to approach only one person, and that was a man who hunts and traps and is sometimes heard yelling at his dog. No such fear with Shila, friend to all living things. In this blog, I'm featuring her photography. Since I'm always behind the lens, it's hard to get a picture of myself self-actualizing.It's cool to see my world through someone else's camera lens. Here's Shila's photo of Chet, scanning the overlook for chaseable cattle. I think his encounter last month may have cooled his jets on chasing cattle, but I won't know until we come in contact with a herd again. He approaches the scene of his cow-chasing escapade warily now, and I hope that means he'll have more sense next time.
One thing I love doing with Chet is inventing games on the spot. He can be walking through millions of fallen leaves, but hold one up over his head and invite him to jump for it, and it becomes a conquest. This dog is made of Flubber; he can spring like a rubber ball straight up to my chest height. Here, I'm talking to him through a piece of gas line pipe. Whatever the joke, Chet gets it. Fun follows him around like a steaming bowl of Quaker oatmeal.

Our friends Zane and Margaret are wildly imaginative, gracious hosts. They also have the best party favors. As each reveler entered, Zane, a wild New Year's elf, deposited a cup of Fish House Punch in his/her hand, and draped said reveler with some kind of lighted favor--flashing earrings, whistles, necklaces or hats. In the darkened dining room, while psychedelic patterns played on the ceiling, the bobbing, swirling lights on revelers made a dreamscape. Setting the camera to take a three-second exposure, I played paparazzo.
I love these ghostly images, and wish I could include the thumping audio that emanated from enormous speakers hooked up to Zane's iPod.
Before he melted down, Liam demonstrated his fabulous break-dancing moves. Phoebe had festooned his tummy with a cheery New Year's greeting, and he made his rounds with shirt hanging open to display it. A few key piercings and he'd have been a perfect miniature grunge-punk. We're having a New Year's thunderstorm right now--flashing lightning-yikes! I'm drawing warblers, a good thing to do on a rainy January day. I'll leave you with my breakdancing six-year-old, and best wishes for a happy New Year!

Diggity Dog

It was a beautiful day, New Year's, after a rawther wild New Year's eve. We took the kids to a really fun party, not factoring in the reality that they'd been up until midnight the two previous nights. To shorten a long, sad story, they melted down around 11, and we celebrated the New Year as we rolled into our garage with two completely zonked kids in the back seat. It was a bit of a downer, since country folk like us rarely get out to dance and act dopey with our buddies. I wasn't good for much but the day dawned sunny and still, so my friend Shila and I went out with Chet Baker on a long lazy walk around the Loop. Chet thought this was a fine idea and darted about, smelling things we could only imagine. He stepped on an ant hill, noted the soft soil, and decided to investigate. I was quickly covered with a spray of fine soil as it flew out behind him. Having grown up with a dachshund who, over his 12-year life span excavated most of a 5-acre woodland, I found Chet's efforts amusing. He was proud of his work, though, and paused to gaze nobly around with his dirty nose, like a champion racehorse who has just come in off a muddy track. It brought back memories of old Volks, who would come staggering home after an entire Saturday's work, his eyes two wet dark spots in a mask of red Virginia soil. Being a Boston terrier, Chet has been bred not for any honest work but merely for companionship and fun, so he doesn't get too wrapped up in any one pursuit. If he has a job, it is to make us laugh, and that he takes very seriously.I took down the Christmas tree tonight. Chet lay watching me with a worried brow, hoping that I would decide to give him an ornament to chew. He filched a chipping sparrow's nest that was lined with Phoebe's red hair clippings, a prize from years back, and chewed that up while I wasn't looking. I know that sleeping right next to the Christmas tree has been a kind of torture for him, festooned as it is with things of felt, wood, and fiber, things that really beg to be chewed up. But he never bothered any of them until he saw me taking it down. I believe he thought I was throwing the ornaments out at that point (hence the worried look) and that it would probably be OK if he took just one.
Early to bed for all of us tonight. I'll check to see if I have any good images from last night, tomorrow, when I'm awake enough to download them. Until then...