weiner dog

there are a bunch of kids in the neighborhood who play basketball and football on our street because there's not much trafdfic here and because none of the neighbors here are bothered by it.

they have met susie several times. all summer they asked me a rotation of questions when we passed them on our walks: what kind of dog is that? is that a labrador? what's its name? how old is it? what kind of dog is that? is that a labrador? and on and on.

i was suprised on so many of our walks that the same kids who met her a day ago or a week ago seemed to have absolutely no memory of her at all. we'd walk by the perpetual basketball game and someone would ask "is that a lab?"

susie is half labrador retriever and half schipperke. schipperkes are long, low-to-the-ground dogs that no one has ever heard of. because of that, some people, most notably kara's mother, are convinced that susie is half dachsund or even basset hound since she is so short and long. but they're wrong. how the combination of schipperke and lab came about has generated a lot of fascinating conversation, but however it happened, our dog is the unmistakable result. at first glance, you think she's a labrador puppy. but then if you look closer, you see she's really long, really short, and her face is really pointy. and after you live with her for a while, you can't miss the schipperke personality. wikipedia says, "consistent, positive training is a must or life can become a contest of wills." yep.

so anyway, by the end of the summer, most of the kids finally knew susie by sight, and remembered they had seen her before. and every once in a while they'd yell out, "hi susie!" it's the middle of winter now, but we had this freakish 60 degree day yesterday and basketball was in full swing. susie and i walked by, and as i waited for a familiar hello, i heard one of the kids say, "that is a short dog" and another answering, "that's a weiner dog."

oh well.