Dog Dude

Man-Oh-Man--has it ever been hot! This summer's been a-sizzlin'. For you too, probably, wherever you are.  One can hope...

Hanging out with Otis the other day turned the heat into a little lesson in Cool.  Otis was born cool, as you already know. Wicked cool. Take his name. I mean, Otis? If there really is a dock at the end of the bay, that's where he was born.  He's the essence of cool dude-ness.  

The two of us got worked into quite a lather during our visit recently. It was stinkin' hot--so hot that even the birds were silenced.  The trees didn't dare sway out of fear they wouldn't be able to straighten back up.  Otis, hottie that he is, was undaunted and coaxed me into a little frenzy of Go Fetch which I handled like any out-of-shape, aging and immature 50 year old dog walker would.  I whined and I sighed, I gasped and I heaved, and I pretended I was proud of my underarm sweat stains while little gnats stuck to my legs and teeth and forehead.  And my feet...oh wow--yeah--my feet.  Let's just leave it at that.  

But then there was Otis. Imbued with dude-ness, he managed to settle us both.  He wandered us over to the center of the shade under the umbrella-ish apple tree in the yard, and he got his belly all down-low in the grass and flopped those two hind legs of his way behind him while he lifted his eyes upward, a big ol' smile rising across his face and that mouth as big and open and grinnin' as it could be.  And his eyes blinked big blinky-blinks at me...slowly, happily, cooly, and so dude-ly.  

I stood there all stink-like, looking as slimy and greasy and uncool as I felt, and so I figured I would take a page from The Book of Otis and find me a way to get down and get cool, and sample a little piece of this dudeness.  We sat there looking at each other.  As I looked at him and he looked at me I could start to feel my stink blow right off.  And then came that nice cool giant wet kiss and Man-oh-Man, being hot never felt so cool. Like hey, what a dude, Man.