raybear | Staple-land's where the ambulance don't come (Reply)

For those who have never seen my dog, or don't remember past photos, this is Sophie:

She's about 40 pounds and as tall as your knee (if you can't tell since there's no reference people in the pictures) and when she's out in the world, her tail is always up and waving and she prances, and then when you talk to her, her ears go back and she wags and jumps on you in this slow way that makes most people reach out and grab her paws (even though I always knee her in the ribs and encourage others to do the same). In other words, she's a really fierce, menacing creature.

One thing that constantly surprises me about my dog is how much Dudes loves her. And by "Dudes", I mean butch men. And I mean ALL version of butch. Motorcycle bike dudes. Teenage corner dudes. Shirtless muscled lifeguard dudes. Old dudes on the porch smoking a pipe. Military tattooed VFW bar-in-the-middle-of-the-day dudes. They don't just look at her -- they will smooch their lips, click their tongues, talk to her and tell me she's a "nice dog", though sometimes they will actually say she's "so pretty".

Today I took her out in the backyard before I left for work. My next door neighbors were out as well and they said hi to me, then immediately went to the fence when they saw her. "Are you looking for biscuits?!?!" They slip her a biscuit through the chain-link fence most every time she's out when they are. She's wagging and wagging and licking their fingers. One of them goes upstairs into the house to get her treats. The other one stays behind and talks to her in lilting sing-song way. I am throwing away garbage while this happening. They give her the biscuit, watch her run over to the grass to chew it.......then turn their shirtless, camo pants-wearing selves around and go back to slap-boxing the isht out of each other.

ETA: I forgot to say in the beginning, that it was 6 years ago this month, right after Memorial Day weekend, that