bahhumpug: Sunny’s totally missing the mark! (from Sunny’s...

renatkinson:

Remember the mean Lawn Lady who lives a few houses down from us and told Mom in a rather rude way not to let me pee on her trees? Well, she’s having her driveway re-paved, so there were big machines all around her property yesterday, and a crew of about 10 very large, scary, tattooed, sketchy-lookin’ men working on site. Dad was still asleep so Mom had to take us for our suppertime walkies by herself, and was lamenting the fact that she’d have to walk past the group of burly/rowdy workers.

She took us in the opposite direction to go around the block, and on the way back, she kept us on the far side of the street so we wouldn’t be interrupting their work or walking through yucky pave stuff like tar n’ whatnot. We’d already had a stressful encounter with Sparky the Shih Tzu, whose owners never keep him leashed or supervised in their un-fenced yard, and who likes to come out to the sidewalk when he hears dogs approaching and run all around them in circles and bark and work them up into a frenzy. He just wants to play, it’s not his fault that his people are irresponsible… but it really annoys Mom, because it ruins all of Roxy’s good walking behavior and it makes me anxious and defensive. Sparky will see us coming from a distance, and then follow us long after we’ve passed his house, so it’s a good 2-3 minutes of chaos. Mom would love to say something to his owners if only they ever made an appearance other than yelling “SPARKY! GET IN HERE!!” ineffectively from somewhere inside their house or yard. We would detour around his street altogether, but that would make our walk extra-long, and we can’t take extra-long walks in this hot summer weather, so for now we gamble that he won’t be outside when we venture down his street.

Anyway, after the Sparky drama, Mom was irritated and on edge… so imagine her joy when one of the scary workers was on our side of the street, near his big manly motorcycle. Much like Sparky, he saw us from a distance and seemed excited for us to walk by. Mom cringed, expecting saucy comments and leering.

But the conversation went something like this:

LARGE TATTOOED BIKER GUY: “Ooooooh my god, look at the cute little pups! Hi puppies! Hi!”

ME AND ROXY: *pant pant wheeze, squeal, pulling Mom towards him*

LARGE TATTOOED BIKER GUY: “Well hello there! Hellooooo! *letting Roxy jump all over him* Are they pugs?”

MOM: “Um… yeah. Yes.”

LARGE TATTOOED BIKER GUY: “My brother has one just like this. *pointing at me* Same color. I didn’t know there were black ones! They’re both the same?”

MOM: “Yep. Same breed.”

LARGE TATTOOED BIKER GUY: “They’re the cutest little things! *babytalking me and Roxy* And so friendly!”

ME AND ROXY: *pant, pant, enthusiastic tailwags*

MOM: “Yeah… they love people. They’re funny little dogs.” *trying to tug us along as she notices the entire crew across the street has stopped working and is watching us*

LARGE TATTOOED BIKER GUY: “Bye now! Bye little guys!”

ME AND ROXY: “Rrf!!” *saunter after Mom*

VARIOUS MEMBERS OF BIG SCARY WORK CREW: “Awwwwww lookit the little puppies!! DAWWWWW!! Puppyyyyy! Puppypuppypuppypuppy!”

ME AND ROXY: *relishing the attention, trying to drag Mom towards our adoring fans while Mom tries to drag us forward* “Rooooo!”

SHIRTLESS GUY SITTING ON THE BIGGEST PIECE OF ROAD MACHINERY: “Soooo cuuuuute!”

Mom didn’t let us go over to meet and greet, since all construction work would grind to a halt and we don’t need any further reason for Lawn Lady to dislike us. She managed to coax us home with promises of supper. Too bad though, ‘cause those guys looked like they wanted to pet us and play with us all day!

The moral of the story is: even big burly scary guys can turn to goo at the sight of a funny, wrinkly little dog… and sometimes they’d rather tell a pretty lady how adorable her pets are than make lewd catcalls. You can’t judge a book by its cover! :)

Although, to be fair, we did look irresistably adorable in our new bandannas that day. Even the leeriest of leery, creepy road workers would’ve found it difficult to tear his eyes away form our mega-vortex of cute and comment on Mom’s boobs instead. If a happy dog in a cute bandanna doesn’t melt your heart, you are made of stone, my friend!

(PS — Mom promises bandanna pictures soon. It’s a little too hot for us to wear them all the time. Also, we are dirty and stinky right now. Baths first, then bandanna pics!)