Slice of Life

Relax

A Dog's Life

The little things, indeed.

Outer Banks

Saturday morning on the beach with my little buddy.  Cleveland makes his youtube debut next week burying a crab leg he found by the ocean's edge.

Numero Uno!

It's a happy day for beagles everywhere with Uno the beagle taking first in show at the Westminster Kennel Club.  Cleveland happens to be with me at work today and is being treated like royalty, everyone asking him if he watched Uno the other day and congratulating him on the victory.  If you can't tell from the picture in my previous post, Cleveland is a mutt but we think is more beagle than anything.  Part beagle, part cocker spaniel we tell people.  The short black hair on his hind legs is waivy, similar to that of a cocker spaniel.  And I think he definitely has the big brown spaniel eyes.  His front paws are a complete anomaly, twice the size of what they should be for a dog his size, so we wonder if a little bassett hound is in his genes somewhere.  Whatever the case, he is the best dog in the world.

Gotta give it up for Uno though, first beagle to take the crown at Westminster in history.  This should definitely get him laid.

I Just Want You to Love Life

Mondays generally are not days that I bring the little guy to work with me, as he likes to get the week kicked off at doggie daycare.  Dreading the boredom that begins my week with the customary staff meeting that makes me want to poke my eyes out, I figured I'd take Cleveland with me today to spice things up a big.  Because he is the dog that everybody loves, it's a boost to the people I work with as well when he is here with me.  Keep things light, as I like to say.

I suppose the only bad news these days about Cleveland is that the Wife thinks he is getting a bit spoiled, largely in part of my failure to set few, if any, limits and boundaries with him.  But as I always tell him when he is curled up on his couch (yes, he has his own couch which, appropriately enough, is in a room that he shares with me in our house, "The Man Cave" as my wife named it), "I just want you to love life."  I finished my sandwich for lunch 45 minutes ago and this is the look he is still giving me.  How on earth am I supposed to resist this face???

The Reason

The reason I had to kick that dog a couple days ago is because she (I'm 72% confident it is a she - Evelyn, I think) attacked Cleveland before, and this time the dog got off her leash and came screaming at us.  We tried the whole dog-introduction-dogs-will-work-it-out bit and the dog almost ripped Cleve's head off.  The dog has a history with other dogs apparently, and from what we hear almost got collected by the nicest pit bull I've ever met.

So the dog is barrelling towards us and I know it's about to go down.  Cleveland really doesn't have much of a clue but I had to shorten his leash so he couldn't get out from behind me; most importantly, I had to free my legs up and get ready to throw down.

Sure as shit the dog gets within 10 feet of us, zeros in on Cleve and is growling like a maniac.  Not gonna lie to you, fired off an initial scud with the right front toe of my shoe into its chest when the dog was about a foot or so from us.  This shot backed her up four or five feet, she ran around a little bit and angled back at us again.  I'm sure I mumbled something under my breath, something very slice-like, but I was pretty fired up at this point and legitimately can't remember if I did say something.  (I'm thinking in all likelihood something in the neighborhood of "come on, mother f****er!")  As soon as it tried to pounce again I Pele'd and made sure it wouldn't be interpreted as a warning.  The dog ran its ass home after that.  (Definitely freaked out one of the dog's owners, this one the 15-year old shy punk, not good.)

So what are you supposed to do?  One tenant in the larger complex that is our homestead asked if I picked Cleveland up - nope, didn't do that (later heard you're actually not supposed to ever do that, so I'll take it as a W).  Is it cool to kick a dog like that?  It wasn't my first reaction, that never is when I meet new dogs, just the contrary as a matter of fact.  But I saw this dog in action before and it wasn't pretty, so factor in 1) no leash and 2) my own dog's inability to defend himself if he was exposed, and I had few options.

Has to be bad karma either way though.

T.G.I.F.

A Wonderful Awful Idea

A Dog's Life

Now that's what I call relaxed.  And if I haven't mentioned this before, I would like to take a moment to brag about the size of my dog's penis.  It's huge.  Considering it's proportion to his 23-pound frame, it's pretty impressive.  I have a small penis, so I guess I'm finally happy to have someone through which to live vicariously when it comes to the big penis department.  Impressive, I mean really.

Also Known As

Our dog is developing quite the portfolio of names.  He answers to the following:

Cleveland

Little Cleve

Booger Head

Bobby Booger Head

Bobby B.

Bob

Little Man

Bird Man

Man

Muffin Man (disclaimer:  I had absolutely, positively 100% nothing to do with this name and never use it)

Muffin Head (same disclaimer)

Love Nugget (see disclaimer for "Muffin Man")

Brown Eyes

Crazy Eyes

Crazy Man

Crazy Talk