Smile

This is Lola. As she will surely be involved in posts to come, I thought I'd introduce her to you.

Lola makes me smile.

Lola is the cutest ugly dog you have ever seen. Note the somewhat primordial paws.

Lola has a fairly minimal amount of hair... She feels like an old man's cheeks after he hasn't shaved for about four days... Somewhat prickly, but for some reason rubbing it gives you happy little tingles up your spine.

(Did your dad used to give you whisker rubs when he was all scruffy? Mine did. I still giggle a little to myself when I think about it.)

Unfortunately for her, life as a quasi-hairless wonder has its downside. In the summer she has to wear sunblock on her face and belly; in the winter... Well... Imagine running outside buck naked at ten below zero to do your 'business'. She's a tough girl.

Lola is robust yet sweet. She's a very intelligent little gal. If only we had time to channel that intelligence into something productive... 

We got her from a shelter (which happened to save her from a California shelter that was about to euthanize her) so we don't know what kind of dog she is. Dalmation? Shar-Pei? Pit Bull? Bull dog? Spotted Duck Dog? Malaysian Shepherd?

I'm pretty sure she's mostly yellow lab.

(Hee. Hee. Hee. I just say that to tease my older brother, the lab enthusiast. And since he used to make me ride a goat when I made him mad -- more on that later -- I feel entitled to give him a bit of a hard time.)

Back to Lola... Like I said, she makes me smile. Who could have not loved a face like this?

I love her for many reasons, but one of the most predominant is that she's good to my babies. Well, she's good to my oldest baby... We don't let her hang around the baby girl yet, who is just too little to associate with such big mongrels. But she is and always has been good with our oldest. When he was just learning to crawl and walk and grasp and pull himself up, she let him climb all over her. She also let him pull on these...

Wrinkley, whiskery, soft cheeks. See? I told you... Old man whiskers.

She and I do have one point of contention, however. She's in love with my man. That's right... She's got her sights on my husband. She adores him. She takes every opportunity to lay on top of him that she can get. She would slather him with kisses every chance she got too if we didn't get after her for it. (We try not to encourage face-to-face contact with her and our other mongrels.)

So, me and the dog get into a cat fight (did I just say that?) over MY man from time to time, but then she lets my baby climb all over her and all is forgiven. We don't get too shook up about it. We don't get too shook up about much of anything around here...