Looping the Hen

He's Smaller Than He Thinks

Well, I'm off to the Land of Black Squirrels for the next 7 days, but wanted to leave with an anecdote about my new adopted wannabe Cerberus.

So I took Arnold out this morning to do his thing. For those who have never met him, he is a massive 7 pounds of razor sharp teeth, a keenly developed intellect, and bulging muscles. He also doesn't much like other dogs, even those who tower over him and outweigh him by 10 to 1.

Whenever he is done, he runs back up to the door and proceeds to sit (very cutely I must add, I taught him this!) so I can take off his collar, and then we admire the day for about 10 seconds before I let him in. At which point he usually bolts across the house until he is back within 5 feet of Tammy. I am convinced Arnold thinks he has a small explosive capsule buried in his brain which will detonate if he spends more than 7 minutes away from his mother.

Anyway, this morning, something came up that was infinitely more important. The raging ball of fur decided he needed to pick a fight with the largest dog in the complex, a 150-lb monster Great Dane. (To be completely honest, I don't really know whether it was a Great Dane, but he was huge and could easily have fit Arnold under his tongue like a furry cough drop) About 2 seconds after I took the leash off, Arnold spots Frankendane and is gone before I knew what happened, across our little creek and vigorously assaulting the much larger and scarier looking dog while it's owner is holding it with both hands to prevent it from killing the little gnat yapping at it.

It was very much like those nature shows where the itty-bitty badger is fighting off a grizzly. It is a good thing Arnold is more scared of me than of massive mountains of teeth. I finally got between him and the Dane and chased him off for a moment. Sometimes I used to think Arnold is not the pointiest fork in the drawer, but now I know it. He kept making these huge sweeping runs to try to get around me and to his prey, yapping fiercely the whole time. The lady was pretty nice about the whole thing, and managed to get her dog back to her house, while I finally scared Arnold back to my front door.

Thinking back, I am pretty sure the Dane was actually more curious about the tiny creature engaging it than intent on crushing him in it's massive jaws. Anyhoo, I got a lovely twisted ankle cavorting around in my socks and work clothes, so it looks like running up in loverly British Columbia may be out. Grrr.

Anyhoo, have a great week y'all, I doubt I'll check in between the squirrels, museums, beer and whatever other amusements G has dreamed up. Back on the 8th!