Rocket Dog and Rocket Mop
Chip and Ollie on a morning walk. It’s like having a miniature Sophie around the house.
She’s a very doggy dog, adorable and friendly.
She’s also very afraid of lightning. Unlike Chip, she doesn’t hide. She tries to settle in on our heads. Cute though.
[Life got busy after Sophie left us so this didn’t get published in a timely manner]
She started off her rescued life at ELPO as “Lucille” after she was found wandering South Dallas and it’s speculated she might have been a Katrina dog. ELPO originally thought she was much older until they cleaned her teeth and knocked several years off her estimated age. They speculated she’d been eating garbage during her street days and she never had much of a discriminating palette until her later years. June bugs and Cicadas were always her favorites, with the odd lizard thrown in if she could get one.
After the adoption, Susan thought she looked more like a Sophie and so Sophie she became.
She went from a shaggy wookie to a thin puppy in no time. While she was likely a year or two old when she joined us, she always had the soul of a puppy.
She was our sweet girl. Our doggie-dog. If there was stereotypical dog behavior, she’d display it at some point. From rolling in the grass (fortunately not on anything too smelly) to sniffing everything in the area during a walk to barking at people walking by the house. She never attacked the mailman though, so that’s good. I think that most of the time when she barked at people walking by the house it was more often than not a “Hey! Hey! Wanna talk to me?!”
She loved to go out early in the morning and run around the yard. Even as she got older and developed hip dysplasia and congestive heart disease there was no stopping her. She’d bound outside, stop for a moment and sniff deeply of the first thing that caught her nose and then leap up into the air, turn around and run off down the yard as if to shout “Wheeee! It’s a new day!” On most mornings that first run would be part of a challenge with her packmate Chip, to see who could make it across the yard first. They’d then part ways and sniff about as their noses demanded.
When she was younger she’d do what we called her “happy Sophie dance” for breakfast and dinner.
She so loved to run. She’d run around the house, run around the yard, run around the neighborhood. She wasn’t a great running partner though because she had a tendency to suddenly dart across our path in search of of the source of that great smell she just picked up.
She had really long non-schnauzer legs that would let her get up to some impressive speeds.
She was also one of the cuddliest dogs we know. Her favorite place to be was in a lap, leaning against the person petting her. Unfortunately she was just big enough that would laps weren’t comfortable for very long but she was just as happy moving to the nearest spot on the couch.
As she got older she adopted our recliner as it let her stretch out and while we couldn’t pet her as she sat there, she could keep an eye on us.
Hopefully she’s still keeping an eye on us.
I don’t like Cicadas (though I will argue the name should be pronounced with a hard ‘K’ sound for the same reason that Celtic is pronounced that way. “Seltic” is just wrong. So is “Sicada.”
Anyway.
The reason I don’t like them is not because they’re “bugs” but because they’re the heralds of hot weather. I don’t get to spend as much time in water like I could as a child and so hot weather is not something I really look forward to.
As bugs, I think they’re great. All googly eyes with spikey legs and they make that great sound which you’d so hate to hear in the middle of the night when you know there’s an axe murderer in the woods.
I was recently lamenting to Susan that I’ve never seen a Kikada Cicada come up out of the ground and molt. I’ve only ever seen their husks hanging onto a tree trunk or leaf or seen the mature cicada BUZZING away in a tree or from between my fingers.
She’s actually been saved from one by our dog Sophie. I’ll let her tell that story.
Mine is much more mundane.
I was on a walk this morning with Chip the Wonder Dog, when I saw a critter wobbling across the sidewalk.
It turned out to be a recently unearthed Cicada headed toward the nearest tree.
Being the kind of guy I am I gently picked him up and placed him (Her. It. Whatever) at the base of the tree.
It was quite dark so I continued on my walk. I wonder if he’s molted…
I’ve scared off all the bad creatures. We can go for a walk now.
It’s a chilly, soft day perfect for sitting about the house with my sweetie, casting some Pandora through the 60+ year old Klipsch speaker sitting behind me, playing Mexican Train Dominoes,
playing with the camera (hence the pictures), doing a bit of knitting
and attempting to convince the dogs that they don’t really want to go for a walk in the rain.
From sometime in the 60’s most likely.
These days the TSA would pack the people into hermetically sealed bags before they would let them walk across the tarmac.
Next they’ll be stealing toy guns from sock monkeys. Oh wait, they already did that.
You can find the most unexpected things while out on a walk with the dog.
Glorious sunrise this morning followed by more gloriousness while I was driving in (blinding golds and yellows reflecting off the clouds) and as I’m turning away from my car to walk into work I see this. “Ooooh, that’s interesting.” and pull out my camera. Next time I’ll get out the tripod too. It’s difficult to get bracketed shots by hand.
I had to abandon the monitor mentioned in the first post due to some software issues. I’d have had to make the images pixel by pixel by hand using a hex table and decided my time would be better spent coming up with other ways to frighten the pee out of the miniature humans.
