The Odd Couple: Ricky and Sophie

Today, continuing our series of "Return to Normalcy" posts, I bring you Ricky and Sophie!

RICKY RICKY YOU'RE SO FINE YOU'RE SO FINE YOU BLOW MY MIND HEY RICKY

First off, Ricky is a chow and shepherd mix. It's the first question I asked when I met him, because of his distinctive visage. The picture above doesn't really capture that as much as seeing him in person does. He has an innate "chunky fluffiness" that is hard to replicate in two dimensions. Second, Ricky is a GREAT name for a dog. You don't hear it that often, for humans or dogs, to the exent that I thought Ricky's name was Nicky when I first heard it because my brain wouldn't process it as a dog name. It just has this...ZAZZ...to it that brings a smile to my face. You know, a certain ZING. ZORK. KAPOWZA. It's that effervescent POP that makes life worth living. Also, even though this Ricky is definitely a male pupper, the name Ricky makes me think of a sassy receptionist that snaps her gum, has long red fingernails, and incessantly curls her hair with her index finger. And yes, for the thousandth time, this is how my brain decides to pass the time: constructing elaborate narratives that don't make sense in a logical way but do have a certain metaphorical ZORK to them.

SOPHIE SOPHIE YOU'RE A TROPHY YOU'RE SUCH A TROPHY YOU BLOW MY MIND

Sophie is likewise a grand name for a doggo, especially one as sweet as Sophie is. She's a grand, ol' dame of golden retriever lineage, with a heart of gold and a nose that just won't quit. She doesn't have the walking speed that she used to, but she doesn't let that stop her. Also, when I walk in the door, Ricky will immediately accost me with a coupla yips and barks and then some hand licking and then, from some distant other room I'll hear a faint "bork bork bork" as if from some deep root cellar. This is Sophie, mustering as much guard doggery as she can and it's always the cutest thing ever. Oh, and Sophie is ABSOLUTELY massive. The pic above doesn't really do her immensity justice, I'm not entirely sure the depth of field on my iPhone camera is advanced enough yet. She's not fat—lord knows I would never call any dog (that wasn't my own) fat, and especially not a lady doggo—but just a solidly framed canine. I feel like golden retrievers range from teeny and reddish to massive and white/gold, almost as if their coloring gets diluted by their big dumb ol' bodies. Sophie is most certainly of the large white gold persuasion.

My personal favorite part of the walks is the contrast betwixt Ricky and Sophie whilst we are out walking/returning home. Ricky instantly explodes out the door and heads out the front gate whereas Sophie often turns the other way and shambles towards the back gate. They both have those leashes that you can retract and lock if you need to, which is very helpful when you have two doggos of such different velocities. To make an analogy, RIck and Soph are like their own planets, Ricky a small rocky body with unpredictable motion, a short period of revolution, and a tendency to bounce off other objects in his path. Sophie is more of a gas giant with a slow deliberate dance and resistance to the gravitational pull of any other bodies.

The best part of the walk is our return to the homestead. Both dogs are super well behaved and very routine oriented, so they stroll right up to the side door to be let in. I pop Ricky off the leash and he runs up the stairs to wait patiently at the door. Sophie, due to her age and hip problems so damn common with goldens, is unable to walk up the stairs anymore. She dutifully waits at the foot o' the staircase for me to get into squat position, pop my hands under her belly, lift her up, and ferry her up the stairs. She makes a strange noise sometimes and tends to pump her legs as we near the top, but she is surprisingly okay with the situation. I mean, who wouldn't be? I wish I had a video of this interaction, because it is probably very amusing to witness. It does add more variety to my dogwalking workout, which is good as I'm putting together the galleys for my upcoming exercise book "Dog Tired: How to Lose that Paunch Walking Pooches" (...title might need a bit of work).

To close, Ricky and Sophie are a great addition to the roster of HTH puppers. Here's a pic of Ricky enjoying a Kirkland Signature doggy treat in his secret spot (please don't share this post with him, he thinks he's invisible down there).

RICKY RICKY MUST YOU HIDE TO EAT YOUR TREAT LET'S TALK ABOUT THIS MAN

Sean

Dogwalking 101: Who Does That?

Happy Friday everyone. I hope you're ready for some prime, dry-aged, coffee-rubbed, pan seared complaining about the public at large this morning. One thing I didn't expect about taking a dogwalking job was the sheer exposure to the mass of humanity and its discontents that I'd experience every single day whilst out and about. To be fair, I'm not talking about the interactions that I have with living, breathing people. Those are typically fine, except for the man that screamed obscenities at me for coasting my bike up the apron onto the sidewalk within 15 feet of him, but he probably just confused me for his mother or something. In fact, and I'm sure that I'm preaching to the dog choir (patent pending) here, but walking with a pooch definitely gives you some kind of charisma advantage over the dogless. People willingly come up to you smiling and happy, and while they often talk directly to the dog and not to you, it is nice to feel like that much vaunted MEMBER OF THE COMMUNITY trope that every politican talks about but never really shows any example of (Did y'all know that Chicago Alderman make 6 figures a year in a position that was initially intended to be a side job? That doesn't sound like the Windy City Politics I know!) Conversely, having a pup tethered to you obviates the need for mindless BS small talk about the weather or sports, which pleases me greatly as a prominent critic of that national pasttime.

A picture of Ricky to break up the wall of text, unrelated to the topic at hand. However, full blog post to come on Ricky and his sister Sophie soon.

What really messes with my sunny demeanor are the artifacts that these nameless souls leave behind. I've always found litter disgusting, but now that I see it everywhere every day I have become some kind of ecologically minded Rush Limbaugh—but you know, cursing and frothing at the mouth in my head instead of on the airwaves. Here's a neatly formatted bulleted list of the top discarded items that cause me apoplectic full body shivers and shakes while I'm out walking the dogs of Chicago:

• Broken glass. Honestly, the animals that break glass all over the sidewalk and adjacent grass need to stop yesterday. I understand that it's likely the people doing this are not in their right mind, but it's just so god damn dangerous for doggo feet. What must happen is that people on their morning commutes find a big pile of broken glass outside their apartments and then they dutifully footsweep it all onto the small rectangle of grass allotted to them for recreation by God Emperor Rahm Emanuel. They smile to themselves at a job well done and zoom off to their finance job. Then I come along a couple of hours later to walk through the veritable minefield left behind by some late night boozehounds and some early morning misguided good Samaritans. It doesn't help that many bottles are as green as the god damn grass they now rest on, shattered and sharp. I always see these borosilicate caltrops before treading upon them and have successfully avoided all incidents thus far and will continue to do so.
• Dog waste. I always knew that there were scummy folks that didn't pick up after their dogs but I am absolutely floored at the sheer number of dogpies that I see every day. It's not like you're walking your dog miles and miles from your home in the land of your sworn enemies...you're messing up your own god damn neighborhood. YOU'RE LITERALLY SHITTING WHERE YOU EAT. It also takes like 5 seconds to completely solve this problem, even less with the vessels from our friends at Poop Bags! Not to mention dog waste feeds rats, which I think everyone agrees are probably the most repulsive creatures on this plane of existence (which is a shame, since they're super impressive and hearty and essentially just night squirrels without fuzzy tails—dibs on calling rats "night squirrels" BTW). Oh and not to mention, dog waste can ALSO FEED YOUR WEIRDO DOGGO IF YOU'RE NOT CAREFUL. AND YOU LET THAT DOG LICK YOUR FACE. Pick up after your pets people.
  • Dog waste, already in a bag. Seriously people? This is like getting to mile 26 of a marathon and then wandering off into the woods to die. You're so damn close to something great, and then you just have to ruin everything. This is arguably worse than not picking up after your dog at all because it belies an awareness of the problem and then just a complete lack of responsibility. If you just leave the #2 au naturale there's a small chance you didn't notice what your dog was up to (although they LITERALLY make eye contact and make an expression like they're in a school play and just forgot all their lines so I don't buy that shit). But if you bag it up and then just leave it like a teeny tiny garbage bag for the sanitation professionals you're just a dumb jerk and you can lose my number.
• Chicken bones. I've been over this one before, but if you've ever walked a pupper by a Jewel Osco you've had your shoulder wrenched out of socket by a possessed canine in search of deep fried wing marrow. Many people figure that since dogs have loved ones since time immemorial, this is a fine lil treat. I ASSURE YOU IT IS NOT. Deep frying the wing causes the bone to shatter when chewed and if your dog's tummy gets a hold of one you will be in a whole mess of trouble. So if you're someone who likes to enjoy a mass market grocery story chicken wing, please dispose of your leftover bones in the trash. Actually, just place the entire meal in the trash before eating it. There's better chicken in Chicago at commensurate prices—don't you like yourself?!
• Deceased birds and rodentia. This one is a bit morbid, but absolutely occurs in any city center. Also, this one isn't really anyone's fault per se, but it still is a bit shivery to come across. If you've spent any real time walking the neighborhoods of Chicago, you've seen your share of birds that are no more, run over night squirrels, fallen day squirrels, and the like. While confronting death like this often gives humans pause and forces them to reflect on the precarious tightrope we all walk betwixt this world and the spirit realm, dogs think, in all caps, "WHAT IS THAT CAN I EAT THAT I'M GOING TO TRY TO EAT THAT". Bless their hearts. And then gently pull them away from their supposed bounty, because you don't know what kind of exotic flu or novel viral infection might reside in that mess.

Here's Sophie to break up more textwalls. Look for a blog on her and Ricky on Monday.

These are the heavy hitters of left behind items on the streets of Chicago that mess with my typically rosy days spent dogwalking. There are probably more, but these are the ones that spring to mind. I hope everyone has a great weekend, full of high rate Chicago chicken and bereft of night squirrels.

Sean