Dog Romp

In the chilly mornings, right after breakfast, is our gangs’ favorite time for a raucous romp. I like to walk out with my coffee and watch. I get many a morning chuckle out of this.

Most of the time I just try to stay out of the way. On this morning a few weeks back, I took my camera out to capture the shenanigans. One of these days we’re going to get a video camera, but until then, while you’re scrolling through these you have to imagine that at any one moment four or five dogs out of the six are barking their silly faces off. And their voices cover quite a range, from Matilda’s cute little raspy bark to Blue’s long, deep bay and Sophie’s drama queen squeal, and everything in between. Good thing we live out in the country.

So. Here we go.

The morning games usually start with everyone standing around after breakfast, kind of scoping each other out.

Then somebody will get the ball rolling.

More often than not, that somebody is Andy.

Things begin to get a little revved up in the arena as everyone joins in.

A little trash talk is bandied about.

Andy teases everyone with a little false start ...

and ...

THEY’RE OFF!

A surprise move from Blue as he lunges for the tail ...

and the crowd goes wild!

Hey, wait a second ... where did everybody go?

SQUIRREL!

What? How can barking at squirrells

POSSIBLY be more fun than chasing ME?

C’mon!

And ... THEY’RE OFF ... again!

WATER BREAK!

Did you see me running with the big dogs?

So, are we gonna go again, or what?

OK! One more time ... out to the tree and back!

Last one back’s a rotten egg!

Hey, you didn’t touch the tree ... no fair!

*Whew!* I’m tuckered out!

LATER THAT MORNING ...

zzzzzz ...

zzzzzz ..

.

double zzzzzz ...

zzzzzz ...

Hmm ... I know there’s a squirrell up there somewhere ...