the dog parade

I should say up front that though I can't match the quality of photos or narrative, I was inspired by the Pioneer Woman's Initiation of Hamilton. After checking out her page, I wanted to take my camera on a walk with the dogs. Usually I'm running, and it's not entirely comfortble to have an expensive piece of equipment bouncing round my neck or in a bag or in hand. Luckily, Marnie wanted to go for a walk so I had extra incentive to do both today. She's working on her comprehensive exams for her PhD, and her dog lost an eye last Friday - it's been a tough week. A quick walk did us both some good.

Four leashes, six different walking speeds, several bathroom stops, and we were finally at a point where we could let them run free.  

Our cast of characters includes the very photogenic, of course, Myosotis:

Next, there were Emma and Stevie. Stevie always made it to the ball faster than Emma, no surprise. Stevie wasn't quite sure what to do with the ball once he got it, but he always knew the one who got there first was the winner. After scooping up the ball in his mouth, he'd trot around like hot stuff... I think he just liked having a pretty lady chase after him.



I figured it wouldn't help his ego if I were to share that all Emma was thinking was, "Give me the ball. I've got to have the ball. Please? Can I have the ball? Just for a second... I really need that ball. Gimme the ball. Ball. Me. Give me the ball."

Lastly, the star of our show was the one-eyed wonder, Buddy:



You can see he's... um... only got one eye now. But, along with that eyeball, he lost a pretty big brain tumor, so we're all cheering for little Oyster Breath (affectionate nickname... the dude's 14 years-old, so I suppose he's allowed some seriously bad breath.)

And, then there was Marnie. I've noticed that I seem to take pics of friends with hats on and the brim just causes trouble with shadowing the face.... So the best shots are with their heads down... Oh well.