My dog is a circus freak!

Bullock and I don't celebrate Easter, so we took the opportunity of fewer people in the city parks today to take Pippi on her first fun outing other than her daily walkies. (We also went to the vet on Thursday, but I don't think that counts, even though she enjoys meeting new people and doesn't seem to have vet anxieties.) It's important for her to meet other people and dogs, too, but it's also nice to have a park largely to ourselves and to be able to observe how Pippi reacts to a handful of runners, cross-country skiers, and dogs with their walkers, rather than whole hordes.

Anywho, I took along my camera to record the event, especially since it was a pretty, snowy day. I took a lot of pictures of Bullock with Pippi walking along, from a distance and from behind, to try to capture the solitude we had. In the midst of taking those pictures, I serendipitously captured this one:

No, you're not seeing things. Pippi is standing completely upright like a soldier at attention (minus the salute), and her leash is totally slack, so Bullock isn't helping her balance at all. And what's more amazing is that she stayed like that for at least 30 seconds. She stood up just as I was snapping the picture, although I didn't quite realize it. I heard Bullock laugh in wonder, looked at the image I'd captured, and then looked up to see Pippi still standing and watched her continue to do so for a little while longer.

This is what she does all the time to look out the windows in the house, but we'd never realized until now that she stands up first and then puts one paw delicately on the sill to hold herself there longer. Bullock now wants to teach her to do it on command as a party trick.

So what inspired this little freakish display? These creatures, of course:


We figure she stood up to get a closer look, since they were on slightly higher ground. For awhile they were just standing there, too, but by the time I got the camera on them, they took off. Oh well -- can't get every shot.




Btw, substantive, non-dog-related posts will return to this blog, I promise. But in the last week, all of my free time has been spent with Pippi, so I've been a little dog-obsessed lately.

Also, I really wanted to call this post "She is risen," but that was too much of a groaner even for me. Plus, I didn't want to mislead people to think I was then going to do a Carolyn Bynum-esque thing on the feminine Jesus or anything. But clearly I had to tell you anyway, for those of you who like your humor with bad puns and blasphemy.