dog days

I really wasn't all that in to this morning. When the alarm went off I was busy having a super bad nightmare with dogs in it. I didn't want to get up, but I did. When I left the house I cuddled Annie and Jinx before leaving and trudged to the car. Once Shawn had the car cleared of all snow and we were backing out he exclaimed, "What the hell?" and then I looked out my window only to see two HUGE dogs saunter up our driveway, past my side of the car and up the stairs to our front door.One was a German Shepherd about the size of a horse and the other was this black Boxer-looking thing (with sort of Boston Terrier colouring). Both were intimidating dogs. The German Shepherd lifted his leg ON MY FRONT DOOR! Rude! So as Shawn and I were wondering what to do (get out of the car? stay in the car?) the dogs noticed my neighbour in his driveway who was clearing off his own car. He had starting to talk to them while they were sniffing at our front door and they bounded over to him. He kept talking to them as they approached, by this time Shawn got out of the car as well and once I saw them start to wag their tails frantically at the neighbour I got out as well.The dogs had no collars and neither we, nor the neighbour (who has lived there 20-something years) had seen these dogs before. When the Boxer-ish dog saw me outside she bounded over, her nub of a tail wagging, stood up, her paws on my chest and smothered me in kisses. The German Shepherd also sauntered over and nuzzled me, but he was much more timid. Although his tail was going crazy.We didn't know what to do. The streets are miserable and with snowbanks everywhere these dogs could get injured. With no collars we had no way to figure out who they belonged to. As the dogs bounded away behind our row of houses we heard a whistle. Way down the other end of our street was a man with a leash (probably two?) whistling for what we just assumed were his dogs. Only they had run behind the houses, so who knows where they went to. So Shawn and I started calling to them in that "dog voice" trying to get them to reappear. We didn't know if they were English or French (yes, even our dogs are divided by language!) but at least the tone would get across.They finally bounded back to us and the man on the street was a little closer. They smothered us in "hellos" again and I said "Look! Your Daddy! C'est papa!" Sure enough when they heard the whistle closer they bounded down the street to the man. He waved and yelled out that he was sorry (in French) and walked away with the dogs.They weren't freezing, so we think either they escaped from the house when someone was leaving for work, or with the snow piled high, they might have been able to jump out of the backyard (assuming one went and the other thought "Hey, not without ME!"). They were a comical pairing. It was like the Littlest Hobo and Sidekick. Only that Littlest Hobo was about the size of a pony. Sweet dogs though. Even if one did pee on my front door.Then of course I got to work and opened up my webmail and read through a mailing list digest only to see that the first ever Lappie I met in 1998  had passed away in his sleep on New Year's. He was almost 16 and possibly one of the sweetest dogs I have ever met. Good ol' George, who is Annie's sire, was blind and deaf the last 5 or so years, but that didn't stop him! When I visited again in 2004 he was happily digging a hole through the planet and all you could see was his tail sticking out.Annie's dam, was my other favourite Lappie. Jessica passed away a couple of years ago now. She was also Kewpie's half-sister. She was a fabulous dog. In honour of George and Jessica I will post this photo from my trip in 2004 to Memphis where I attempted to get a "family photo" for Annie with Dan, her brother in it as well. Getting 3 dogs to pose? Not the easiest!

(L-R: Dan, Jessica, George)

I remember that trip - that was the trip where when I came back, less than a day back in town we were broken in-to and robbed while we spent only ONE night away from home. Good times. *sighs* Of course I never did forget my week visiting Linda at her home with all those dogs. I know I have linked to this before, but in case you want to see the other dogs, you can see the entire album here.My day has been very dog-filled and it's not even noon!