DOG DAY AFTERNOON

Here is how Bodhi, our new Standard Poodle, spent the afternoon. I can tell you that B and I also took short naps too. I guess it was the heat getting to all of us. It was about 96 degrees here in the Sierra Foothills. We tried doing a bit of stuff outside but it was just too hot. The roses need trimming, the garden needs weeding, but if you wait until the mosquitoes are gone then the heat has arrived. There is just no happy medium.

This dog: Bodhi is everything we ever wanted in a dog and more. I think we had him for over a week before we even heard his voice. He never barks, he never whines, he just wants to be loved. His only flaw is that he jumps up and wraps his "arms" around our waists and puts his head on us to love us. We recognize that this is "loving" us but to some unsuspecting person it might seem that he is jumping up and being aggressive. Not Bodhi. I don't think he knows the meaning of the word aggressive.

In the morning when we let him outside he will do his "business" and then run immediately back up on the deck, running from front to back again and again until we open the door and let him back in. During the day he is right by our sides, either on the floor napping or walking along side one of us. He is a bit snoopy, always wanting to check out what we are doing or eating in the kitchen. He likes strawberries and watermelon but doesn't like bananas. Those are only small treats for him. He knows that he has his own food waiting for him morning and night.

In the evening he will jump up on B's lap and fall asleep. He is a forty-pound lap dog. And, if he can't get up on B's lap he will just lean his head and upper body on B until he falls asleep and his back legs start to wobble and give way. And, that doesn't always wake him up either!

Me--I have to have my pillow and blankets "just right" before I can even begin to fall asleep at night. It is not as easy for me to relax at the end of the day no matter what I try. Hot baths, lavender, reading, TV playing, fan blowing on low---I have tried them all. I wish I had the ability to just lay down on the floor, shut my eyes, and know that all is well in the world. No worries, no cares, just everything being taken care of for me. Ah----the life of a dog.

He will show me how to live, how to think, how to just "be". That is his purpose. To show only love. To give only love, to enlighten me and make me aware. He already has. And, he didn't even know he did. That is the beauty of it.