Sunday Silence

Every one in this house is asleep, except me. It's nine o'clock on a cool, grey Sunday morning.

We got up, as usual, around six and had our breakfasts. Bill didn't sleep well last night, for no particular reason, he said. I know when I got up to let a dog out - was it Fat Charlie or Easy, I can't recall - he was reading in his recliner. It was somewhere around two, chilly and pitch dark out.

"Can't sleep," I asked?
"I'm coming back to bed now," he answered. And he did.

I'm trying to switch the dogs to raw food. It's not working. I've tried before. It didn't work then. Isn't the definition of insanity to attempt the same behavior and expect different outcomes?

I didn't walk the dogs this morning. That is a radical departure from our normal routine. After coffee and the paper, Bill went upstairs and reclined in his recliner. I bought it for his birthday several years ago. He loves that chair. Mama Pajama and Delia keep him company on the day bed.

I poked around on Whippet World and Facebook. I let the gastric-ly upset dogs out again. That's going to be tough to scoop, I thought. I truly don't want to share that with my neighbors on walks, I thought. I poked around some more on the computer. The dogs went to sleep. Sound asleep. No lobbying for walks. We gave up or maybe gave in and went upstairs.

This town is quiet. The windows are open. It's crazy cool. Often this time of year the temperature never gets below eighty. It plummeted down to the fifties last night. The quiet blows in the windows on the breeze. I didn't even hear a church bell; maybe they gave in, too. Not a single car has passed. The whole neighborhood is a church this morning: empty, that feeling of a sacred chill, old, beautiful, at once familiar and aloof.

My front door opens like the heavy, antique, creaky mahogany doors of the Immanuel Episcopal Church in a tiny town in Maryland. Swede William ambles out. He stretches, yawns. The sun has decided to absolve us after all. William arches his neck. I am fascinated by the absolute, raw beauty of this dog, in its soft, satin paradox of art deco curves and Tour de France muscles.

The sun feels friendly. Time to walk.

Hug your hounds

Better

It was glorious today. Seventy, clear sun, warm breezes. Heaven.

Good for the soul and the psyche too. Canine, human.

We walked right after our oatmeal, even Mama Pajama went all the way to the River. Then I put the boy dogs in the van. It was so nice that the girl dogs could go in and out of the house with the kitchen door open. No worries of wandering Romeos getting to Lindy Available Loo. Not with Delia, Mama Pajama, Luciano, and Maria to sound the "furriner" alarm and Bill right there. So the girls and Luciano (he's really one of the girls in that Broke Back Mountain kind of way, and prefers their company) got some peace and quiet and sun and relaxation, and the boys got to run.

And run they did. There is no dog alive who appreciates a run more than Fat Charlie. Could he possibly be turning eleven in June? He smiles and grins and wags and chases the younger ones and wags and smiles and grins and tells me what a great good servant I am. (That was nice to hear today.) And Very Old Dog had a lovely good time. He galloped a bit! I held my breath. He trotted around and around and finally flopped on the ground and rolled in the grass and worshipped the sun. And Swede William got to run off some frustration, and Sam I Am got to outrun everyone else. After he did twelve weave poles perfectly and did the chute. I made up a trick which seemed to work. I put yummy treats inside the chute showing the path out, and he figured how to open the way with his nose down.

Then I worked the rest of the afternoon outside. Alternating Swede William and Lindy Loo in the yard, and explaining to Swede William in no uncertain terms, that when it was his turn inside, in a comfy crate full of chewgars and peanut butter filled kongs, he could and would be quiet. And he was. Good boy.

Oh how a little warmth and sunshine can calm a troubled soul.

hug your hounds

Some Sunday Smiles

While I work on my little one person campaign to get Google to stop advertising for puppy mills, I have some smiles to share.




Have a Seat!

Lindy Loo makes herself comfy.

Swede William says, "Do I look like a dog bed?"

More Maria

This time of year, Maria likes to wear her jammies 24/7. (We get our jammies from Cottage Hound Designs. Christel is the nicest lady and does a ton for charity.) But Her Ladyship also likes to be covered up. The cover-upper blankets are mostly polar fleece, and the jammies are softest cotton flannel, and they stick to each other like velcro.

So this morning we hear this strange flump-step, flump-pause, step-step, flump. Puzzled, I look up from my computer at the rest of the waggle, to find them looking towards the stairway. I step out of my computer/sewing closet and this is what I see:

She's like the Sweat Pea character in the old Popeye cartoons.

That's better! All tucked in her special hidey bed.

A friend surprised me with this fun picture of Maria and me having a howl together:

Thank you Tim for this photo!

I hope your Sunday is full of smiles.

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