Friday Dogs: Ghost Rufus

This is one of those all-too-common photography accidents, except it ended up being something I actually like. Photographing dogs is usually pretty easy compared to other animals, unless said dog is trying to get you to throw the ball. Then it's just a free-for-all.

Military presence

Evan, Rufus, and I went to Denver for Thanksgiving, and just got back last night. I'd gnaw my own leg off before subjecting a dog to riding in the cargo hold of a plane, so we drove. It's a 14-hour drive from there to Minneapolis. Rufus slept most of the way.


After sleeping in late this morning, I took Rufio out for his morning potty. The apartment complex we live in abuts the playground of an elementary school, and I won't lie to you — I felt a moment of panic when the first thing I saw was a military helicopter, blades still spinning, out on the playground, with a few soldiers in camo jumping out of it and an ambulance parked nearby. The elementary students were standing in rows and bunches closer to the school building.

By the time I got back with the camera, everyone had gone inside. (YES, I have access to a working camera again!)


One of my neighbors said it was for "DARE Day."

When I was in DARE way back in 4th or 5th grade, they had police officers come lecture us about drugs. I had no idea that the military had gotten involved. If I had known, I would've protested.

I want to be clear: I'm NOT anti-military. I am, however, very much against military presence in schools, regardless of whether they're actively recruiting. Because it can easily be argued that the military is ALWAYS recruiting. And when kids age 10 and under are involved, it just gets way too creepy for me.


Besides, it costs an obscene amount of money to fly a helicopter. That seems like a pretty excessive expenditure for an anti-drug program that's been proven not to work.

Friday dogs: the ghost of Rufus past

Part of me wishes that I had a working camera around. The apartment building we live in is the designated "dog building" in the complex, so every time I step outside the door there's a new dog to meet and greet. There's even a person on the third floor whose miniature pinscher just had a litter of puppies.

But while we wait for the advent of a new camera, I hope you can get your puppy fix with this snap from my archives:

(Photo by Karen Hollish)

This is Rufus at 8 weeks old, the very night that I brought him home. (This photo, incidentally, was not taken at home, but at my former workplace, by my former coworker — that's her bichon, Scoops, sniffing Rufus' butt in the background.)

Friday Dogs: Rufus

Evan and Rufus relaxing in the park after a long, long, LONG walk all the way across town:

I really love this photo for some reason. Hard to believe I only took it 2 months ago; the landscape undergoes such an extreme metamorphosis so quickly when winter comes up here.

Friday Dogs: Casey

Casey lives with my friends Tiff and Joni in Superior, WI. She has a sensitive heart, a territorial streak, and a gentle, feel-things-out-along-the-way approach to most people and situations (the main exception to this being strange dogs, at whom she immediately barks if they don't approach right away to say hi).

Two-toned noses, along with one-ear-up-one-ear-down, are one of my favorite features in dogs.

Casey is rather enamored with Rufus. I love this photo because her leash looks almost as though it was Photoshopped in.

Belly-rub

Summer's running out fast, and I feel like it's only just begun. We took Rufus to the park yesterday and threw a frisbee for him until he collapsed. A tired dog really is a happy dog.

Charlie

Just look at that profile. Gorgeous.

Charlie is one of several dogs in this area with cross-gender names; she is, indeed, female. A borzoi mix, she shares her space with two women, a bunny, a duck, and a shepherd mix named Nika (below).


Both these dogs are all legs and pure energy. Rufus loves to try to keep up with them, and we love to watch him try. Here's a size comparison between a corgi and a borzoi:

Little dog, big world

From our front porch, early spring.
(I have a thing for empty-looking spaces.)

I <3 Huckabee

Meet Huckabee, my beloved pedal-powered steed. He's a 26" men's Giant Sedona DX — a hybrid model, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Hybrid bikes are less rugged than standard mountain bikes, and not as fleet or lightweight as road bikes, but they're plenty fast and stable enough to ride on just about any surface. Perfect.

He's named after the quirky, hilarious movie "I ♥ Huckabee's," which you should see if you haven't.

My upstairs neighbors (who have since been evicted) stole my bike pump last summer. Poor Huckabee has gone almost a year without a good old-fashioned tire pumping. A couple of days ago I finally rode him to a gas station and used the air hose to fill him up. It took about a second and a half per tire, and he was like a whole new bike afterwards... smooth as silk, and speedy, too.

Since then I've been biking pretty much everywhere. The only real point of consternation is that I can't bring Rufus along when I ride. Being a corgi, Rufus wouldn't be able to keep up for long with his stubby legs (not to mention he would probably try to herd the bike, which could only end in disaster).

I found a pretty sweet how-to on building your own trailer over on How to Fix Bikes (link) and I'm itching to give it a shot once I gather the resources. I'll want to be very, very careful to make it super-stable before trying to put Rufus in it, of course. I can just imagine biking him to the big park on the other side of town, then letting him run around and catch frisbees off-leash all afternoon...

Sunshine and rawhides

Springtime always seems to come late in the northwoods, and summer is practically a joke. For the first week or two of June, the heat in our house was running daily. And it rained. Cold, ice-colored rain that's really just snow in disguise. Winter never really takes a break around here.

There is, however, a very brief window of opportunity between mid-to-late June and the second or third week of August. This is what we mockingly call "summer" around here.

This is the time when everyone who enjoys such activities as gardening, hiking, camping, kayaking, rock climbing, biking, swimming, and venturing outside without fear of death from exposure gets really frantic. Like squirrels in the fall, or pundits during the last month before a presidential election, we all rush to cram a year's worth of beloved activities into a timeframe too small to hold them.

True to this tradition, I've been dragging poor Rufus around on long walks just about every day. He doesn't complain, of course, but his ears are, shall we say, very expressive.

On our way back from the coffee shop yesterday, I left him tied out front of the dollar store while I ran in real quick. I was looking for two things: a zipper for a project I'm working on, and a package of zip-ties, because zip-ties are as ubiquitous as duct tape — you've just got to have them around.

I found neither, though I did pick up a few things I wasn't expecting to find... and a package of rawhide strips. His fur was hot to the touch after five minutes of standing in the sun, peering in the automatic sliding glass doors and waiting for me. I promised never to leave him tied up in the hot sun again, and gave him a rawhide to seal the deal. So much more meaningful than shaking hands, which he only does on command.