The face of undying respect.
Abby is a cagey lil beagle that was verrrry skeptical of me at first. Luckily, after a half dozen righteous walks and some tactical belly rubs I gained her trust and, I think, her undying respect. Treats may have also been involved.
Abby is a grand walk. Much like me, she doesn't really love leaving the warmth and safety of the house, but once she's outside she's chill. She doesn't bark at other dogs or people and has a delightful synchronus bounce to her tail and ears that never fails to get a smile going on my face. She also sniffs everything in her path. And everything not in her path. She sniffs everything.
Since she's a beagle, her nose has roughly the same range and power as the Hubble space telescope (or perhaps more accurately, the Smelloscope from Futurama). Thus, she can smell a stale Cheerio or discarded bagel remnant from roughly 20 feet away. She has this preternatural ability to make it look like she's just innocently sniffing the ground for strange dog urine when in reality she's eeking closer and closer to some cache of unseen garbage food. And she is quick to snatch that food up into her gob as well. This ain't Abby's first rodeo. Luckily, I've become pretty good at figuring out her plan before she can devour any dirty sidewalk treats, which is good because the neighborhood we walk in has roughly the same number of chicken bones as a Santerian priest's kitchen.
I have to say, much like her reticence to leave the house, I deeply identify with Abby's addiction to snacking. I recall being a young teenage boy and digging through the kitchen cabinets for an errant bag of Mini Muffins or Brown Sugar Cinnamon Pop Tart.
Abby and I also absolutely detest the cold. For me, it's mostly the wind coming off the lake. For Abby it's everything, I think. The wind, the snow, and especially the horrid rock salt the city liberally dumps all over the place. At least we humans CHOSE to live in a place where the air hurts your face, Abby was just thrust into this frozen wasteland. Can you tell winter has been a cathartic time for this dogwalker?
The only high point of going out for walks in the cold weather is Abby's dope jacket.
Yep, I took this picture solely to highlight the jacket.
It's cooler than any jacket I own. I'm not kidding and I have anecdotal proof. About a dozen people have stopped us on the street to compliment Abby's fresh-as-hell parka, versus exactly ZERO people for me. And I've worn multiple different jackets to test this hypothesis. Same results. And before you ask, my self esteem is fine, I just like to engage in fashion contests with dogs as a way to...pass the time? Totally normal.
Tough to argue with that face. 'Cause dogs can't speak English.
To be honest, Abby deserves the props. She is adorable. And when you bundle up adorable in a lil two toned bubble jacket, I never really had a chance. I'd like to close this post with a message to Abby: "Keep your head on a swivel. 'Cause come spring I'm breaking out the rugby shorts and cut-off shirts."
Sean