This photo of Tino NOT cooperating with a group photo makes me smile every time.

Last night Matty was curled in a ball in the spot I like to sleep in. When I came to bed, he moved, leaving a warm spot for me to cozy into. I think he knew I’d be really cold without Rob and without the heat kicking on, and wanted to help. Tino stayed on my feet, Leeloo snuggled around my knees, and Matty took his new position, snoozing down the length of my back.

My dogs rule.

Every morning in Prospect Park there are off-leash hours until 9 am. The chances of me actually seeing the world before 9 am are generally slim to none, but yesterday morning at five am I was staring at the ceiling wide awake and completely miserable. So I got up. I made myself coffee and quietly snuck Matty and Leeloo, their leashes and some poop bags out of the apartment.

Tino was sleeping, and I really didn’t want to deal with him, either. He’s horribly leash aggressive, and we aren’t sure what to do at this point about it. When he sees another dog he starts growling and barking and choking himself at the end of his leash, and it sounds horrible and scary. I know all he wants to do is play, but it’s hard to explain that to someone who has a tiny puppy on the end of their leash that’s cowering and piddling itself in fear. It’s something we’ve been working on, but we haven’t seen a lot of improvement in. If you have ideas for me, let me know.

Anyway, Matty and Leeloo, the dream team, headed out on their walk, and they were pretty jazzed just getting out there, seeing the sights and smelling the smells. I got to the meadow area of the park and unsnapped their leashes, and it was a few seconds before they both realized they were unteathered. Leeloo kind of jumped up and down a few times, and then looked at me like, “Really?!” and then she was off, gone, sprinting down the field, running for the pure joy of running. I never see her so happy as when she’s barreling at full speed. We’ll definitely have to go again.

Yesterday we went to Connecticut to continue dealing with the basement of my grandma’s house. The second it was legally ours we emptied our storage space and deposited half our earthly possessions down there. A lot of my things were already there from when I lived with her before, from ’02 to ’04, and now it’s all a mix of stuff that we don’t really need but can’t quite throw away. What’s the word for that? There has to be one.

Junk, probably.

We took the dogs with us. Every time we go they are absolutely thrilled with the huge grassy backyard full of new smells to roll in. We found a partially deflated ball in the woods, probably from a neighbor, and Tino played with that. Grandma found Matty an old tennis ball in the garage and threw it for him.

The cool thing about my dogs is that they know better than to poop on the nice grass. They all politely trotted to the wooded area to hide themselves, and pooped in the piles of decaying leaves. They don’t know not to roll in animal pee, though.

Needless to say we didn’t get as much work done as we could have, but that was fine. It’s been ages since I “went out to play”, and it seemed much more important to goof off in the fresh air.

Rob found the handle of a paint roller in the garage, and we played a round of stickball. Matty was both infield and outfield, trying to get his tennis ball back. We tried to make Leeloo and Tino in on the game, too, but they just blinked at us when we called them, and then went back to zoning out in the sunshine.

It was a really good day.

Happy one year of Tino to me, Rob, Matty and Leeloo! A year ago I picked him up at the airport. He was supposed to be under anesthesia for the flight, but when I collected him he was wide awake.

It’s been a long year, honestly, but I’m so glad we have him. He’s pretty awesome.

This morning I extended my palm to Tino and asked him to “give me paw”. It’s something we’ve taught all of our dogs, a handshake for a treat. Matty and Leeloo learned fairly easily, but in the nearly-a-year we’ve had Tino, he hasn’t gotten it. He started raising one paw slightly in response to the command, and I would take it, shake it and praise him, hoping it would click sooner or later.

Today when I asked his tiny paw landed with soft “pat!” in the palm of my hand. I was stunned, and then thrilled! He learned something! I squealed and loved on him, and he looked very pleased with himself although it was obvious he was totally unsure about what all the fuss was about. I made him do it a few times to make sure it wasn’t a fluke; it’s not. He learned a trick! This is huge, and I am one proud mama.

I’m sick, so I invited the trio to come snuggle with me in bed. They heard my call and did running jumps toward the bed. One! Two! Thhhhrrrr-clump! Thrrrrr-thud! Trrrrrr-thunk! Tino was so excited at the invite that his legs were too quivering and akimbo to launch him onto the bed. I took pity on him and picked him up. Three.

Matty circled next to my torso and flopped into me so that we were reverse spooning. I fell asleep with my head on his rump and my arms around his middle. Leeloo curled against my legs and used my shin as a pillow, and Tino lay so that I could put my ice cold feet under him.

My dogs rock.

Tino jumped into bed last night several times, and every time he did, his little jabby paws would prod me awake as he made a nest for himself that inevitably included some bit of my person. He would circle a few times (jab jab jab!… jab.) and then flop down with a contended sigh, like he was thinking, “Ok, this time they’re going to let it slide.” Each time he landed, we put him back on the floor with a firm “No! Stay!”, but he must have heard “Try again in a few minutes.” because it went on all night long.

The lack of sleep and rushing around made today one of my least favorite kind of days days, although it ended nicely, with a cozy ladies dinner in Connecticut, and I got to put my hand on G’s ever-growing belly and feel her tiny daughter kick me hello.

Tomorrow, however, is totally empty. For the first time in a long time, and probably for the last time in a long time, the weekend is laid out totally blank! It’s New York City, I’m sure we’ll find something to do, although now that I’m thinking about it, we do have two important housekeeping tasks to tackle: find the source of the horrendous smell in the kitchen, and trap the mouse that lives in the laundry room and makes the dogs crazy.

Wish us luck.

Have a happy autumn weekend!

taken by me, from flickr