Carnivale

Busy weekend all round. You know how much I like those.

Sunday saw us at Marda Gras just down the street from my house. Tanja came with the kids and Halo and we headed off to the fun and frolic of a street festival. The dogs were an unmitigated hit. I don’t think we walked more than 10 feet at a time without being stopped and having the dogs admired and fawned over.

Halo embarrassed herself by vacuuming up all the wayward popcorn from the kettle corn vendor. Once she realized it was a free for all she was madly picking up squashed popcorn with abandon. To Tanja’s mortification she also managed to unstick and devour a piece of popcorn stuck to someone’s shoe as they were walking. Raimi was ambling along, would spot a piece, the cogs would turn ‘Hey … look … is that food? I will sniff it … smells like food … maybe I’ll ...” and it was whisked from under his nose by his mother. He did get a couple pieces but he was not nearly as enthusiastic as Halo.

There were a few vendors who were giving out dog cookies. They’d ask can the dogs have a bisq … and Halo was right on it. Sit. Shuffle. Sit. Shuffle. Ears. More shuffling. Sit. Head tilt. And the cookie is gone man, gone. Raimi counts on pity to get his cookies because his sit is less than satisfactory and he’s not as food motivated as his mother. Obviously.

They were otherwise very good, some pulling because they were excited to see what the next vendor/person/child was going to offer in the way of food or scratches. Lots of licks were given out, mostly unrequested, but resulted in lots of smiles and giggles just the same. Tanja must have repeated ‘Watch out for the tongue” about 4 dozen times.

The dogs generate a lot of interest wherever they go because they are impressive and an unusual sight. Raimi especially got a lot of “Ooooh, he’s very big’ and the standard disbelieving exclamation when we say ‘He is her son.” Well, he didn’t come out of her that size. Only one person said ‘Are they mother and son?” and I thankfully only got one ‘Are they a breeding pair?” They’re not pigeons! Someone said “Gosh but they look like Labs don’t they?” and I was hard pressed to bite my tongue and mask the disdain in my reply. Labs indeed.

In all fairness it was a fun day out with the dogs and resulted in a nice tired Boy for the rest of the day. I’m sure Halo was busy digesting all that popcorn during her afternoon nap.