Dogs & People

Today at work I had a lady drop off her dog for boarding, and she jokingly told us not to 'kick her dog or anything'. I'm used to people being weird. We're all slightly crazy anyway. But I found her joke a bit appalling to be honest. I understand some boarding facilities aren't what they ought to be; I've heard plenty of horror stories. But that doesn't mean I understand the rationale behind the violence. Maybe it bothered me more because of all the animal abuse cases I've heard of recently. I'm not sure. I just can't figure out those abuse cases. Everybody slips up. In a moment of frustration or anger you may push your dogs butt down or pull a little harder than you meant to. But to purposefully harm an animal just because you can? Mentally, there's something not right. I realize this commentary isn't really about Kilo, but it's inspired by Kilo. How someone could look at him, and see how complex his emotions and personality are, how different he is from every other dog, and then still abuse him, quite honestly baffles me. Every dog is unique, they have their own personality shining through from the moment they start to crawl. Every dog ought to be special to its owner, otherwise what's the point in having them?
Kilo, mom, grandma and I went to the park on Monday. We made a field trip of it and Kilo had lots of fun running around and being his rotten self. He made friends with a basset hound named Henry and while they started off a little rocky, they finally discovered the perfect solution: Kilo ran all around, and Henry ran in circles trying to catch him. My big puppy is a bit too large to play with most of the dogs that show up at the dog park. He loves to wrestle but a thirty pound basset hound doesn't qualify for Kilos weight class. Luckily chase works no matter what size you are and even if Henry wasn't quite keeping up Kilo still wore himself out.

76 lbs now & sleepy

I know I've said it before, but really, no adventure anywhere with Kilo is complete unless there's been some mayhem, shouting and lots of unwanted attention. He keeps proving it to me time and time again. The dog park is fenced in. Fenced in down into the water so that the dogs don't just run along the shore and get loose. But the fence obviously has to end somewhere and it stops about ten feet into the water. No biggie right? Well, it turns out it is a biggie when your 'grass is always greener' hound spots a stick on the other side of the fence, swims around the barricade to retrieve it, and then can't figure out how to get back to his screaming owner. I'm busy calling and gesticulating to the crazy animal while Mom attempts to dash through a horde of pet owners, their friendly dogs and three dog gates. The whole time I'm trying, once again, to decide if I need to wade into the cold lake water. Deja vu anyone? Kilo finally figured out how to back track just as mom made it through to the other side. And breathe. I'm just grateful that a squirrel or rabbit didn't catch Kilos eyes whilst he was unrestrained because I'd be minus one heart-attack inducing Leo, and as much as I complain about him, the dogs starting to grow on me a little bit.