“At a dog park, everyone has snacks – for their own dogs. At the Duffeeland Dog Park, you can snarfle up snacks like a buffet.”
I was up early because that’s who I am, and Miss Cleopatra Chioux – the French Bulldog to whom I am part-time de facto factotum – woke up early to poop because that’s who she is.
But she wouldn’t go back to sleep, and she had Cathleen and me playing her favorite game – “You Can’t Catch Cleo!” – at 4 am.
And the new house has a block wall. Where we are is wide open, and the New River – scorpions, snakes, owls, hawks, coyotes – is right there, so Cleo can never play off the lead. But at the new house, a dog who loves, loves, loves to run can fetch tennis balls until she collapses in exhaustion – perchance to dream of fetching more tennis balls.
I’m losing the New River – Willie’s a mile-and-a-half south of us, in Rio Nuevo, and I’m leaving him there – but we will be fairly close to the Aqua Fria River, so I can continue to seek thorns big enough to penetrate Arizona-fortified bike tires. Close, too, to the Duffeeland Dog Park, which Odysseus loved and which I wrote a lot about in Sun City. So: Even better: Socializing off-lead play, which Cleo – almost a year old – has never had enough of.
She’s with us maybe 100 days a year, but she’s family. Real estate is kids and dogs, never doubt it. She is not how we chose our next home, I swear, but we might as well call it Cleo’s Playhouse.
In other news:
American Thinker: K–12: the Clutter is the Message.
Andrea Widburg: While the Rally for January 6 prisoners was a bust, it still mattered a lot.
Intellectual Takeout: Why It’s Time to Treat the Hammer and Sickle Like the Swastika.
