That Dog Is Money!

Whenever we walk Jackson, we're careful to watch where he sniffs. Occasionally, he finds some sidewalk food, and we have to be quick to keep him from scarfing it down. He's swallowed more than one bit of street sandwich on my watch.

This morning, Jackson nosed at something, and I took a look...currency! A dollar bill, buried in the snow! Good dog!

That's a hell of a trick. And, if he does it another 2,000 times in the next week, we'll be about even on his expenses for the year. But I shouldn't complain - at least he's working.

Guard Dog

Monday morning, about 2 AM, someone tried to break down our front door. Scary as all shit, but, fortunately, this wasn't a home invasion crew, just a small, confused crazy guy. The door held, the police came in about a minute and grabbed him, and I got a look at the sandals he was wearing two days after a blizzard.

And Jackson had my back, from a safe distance. He came about halfway down the inside stairs and watched from there, 20 feet from the front door. Amazingly, he's able to instinctively calculate, and stay out of, potential lines of fire.

Still, Jackson had a part to play: when the police arrived, I opened the front door to verify that no, I didn't know the crazy guy. That was all they needed from me; they turned to leave and I started to close the door. Then one officer noticed Jackson on the stairs. "Is that a greyhound?" he asked, a big smile on his face. "He's beautiful!" Anytime, anywhere, any circumstances, people love greyhounds.

So, no harm, but we were all pretty revved up for the rest of the night. In fact, Jackson was so upset that he didn't get back to sleep for almost three minutes.

Bootie Call

Blizzard in Richmond this weekend. Jackson was born in Texas, and did his racing in Florida, so we figure this is probably his first encounter with a winter wonderland.

Friday night, with a couple of inches of snow on the ground, Jackson wouldn't come down the porch steps for his late walk. He did wander around in the backyard a bit, and take a much-needed pee.

Saturday morning, sixteen hours since his last poop, a full blast of snow on the ground, I dragged him down the porch steps. As soon as he started to walk, he cheered up. Yes, the world was different, but it wasn't bad. A whole lot better than rain. He got used to the step-and-sink rhythm, and set off in his determined fast-paced walk. We call it his "man on a mission" mode. And he realized pretty quickly that, when the whole world is soft, you can poop anywhere.

So the Saturday walks were pretty easy. This morning, though, we were worried about Jackson's feet. There's salt out there, and chemical salt, and puddles of cold water under thin sheets of ice that break into sharp pieces. Fortunately, a couple of weeks back, we had ordered a pack of Pawz bootiesfor him. If you click the photo above, you can see one on his back foot as I trundle down the steps.

The booties worked! Jackson didn't seem to mind them. He had a little less traction, but the protection/warmth/dryness more than compensated. Downside: the booties are expensive, a little more than a buck per for what are really just thick balloons. They're reusable, but still. So you may want to put a couple aside for your own use: they're handy when you mule drugs through JFK, to raise money for the next order of booties.