Sophie's Good Fortune

We had Chinese food tonight and as usual,
Sophie got her very own cookie and fortune.

Of course, she almost swallowed it in her haste
to get the cookie down the hatch.

Happy Blog Day!


It has been one full year of Sophie's blog. I meant to compile a montage, complete with soundtrack, of the highs and lows, the peaks and valleys, the tears and laughter, but alas, I did not. Sophie would shun such displays anyway. She tends to be a very in-the-moment kind of beast, giving not a moment's thought to the past nor a sniff for the future. In fact, I find her long term planning skills greatly lacking and she rarely seems to learn from her mistakes. (i.e.: She will roll in cat poo everytime, even though the final outcome is always a bath.)

In lieu of the celebratory montage, I will instead repost her very first blog photo. It is commonly referred to as her Olympic photo, taken as Sophie reclined on her red Olympic rug to watch Canada rack up the medals in speed skating.

_________



p.s. One more day to Sophie! Her spa vacation ends tomorrow, which means I can finally go home. New York has been great, Park Slope has been lovely, and the company terrific, but the next time Sophie decides she needs time to herself, she's taking me with her.

Boo Hoo
I miss Sophie.

On the other hand,
I just saw Grey Gardens on Broadway.
Fabulous!
da-da-da-da-dum

In lieu of Sophie,

here are but a few of the estimated
one million dogs in New York City

For the record, Sophie would disown me if I put her in this garb.

Woo Hoo
Sophie won Blog of the Day!

I only wish she hadn't gone on vacation,
so I could give her a big hug.

For the record, Sophie hates hugs.
Well, she doesn't really hate them
so much as tolerate them.
I think she really wants to like them,
but just doesn't know how.
Maybe if I dressed up like a giant tennis ball...

If only she understood that me hugging her is
not unlike when she tries to pick up Minette,
the neighbour cat, by the head.
She really doesn't mean to freak her out;
she just wants to see what she feels like ....
and of course say, congratulations kitty/doggie,
You won Blog of the Day!

On Vacation

Sophie needed a break. She's been working hard and thought she deserved a week at the spa. She's living the life of luxury at Possum Place, a wonderful retreat in the country where she is bunking with a lovely Portuguese Water Dog (possibly named Sasha). Having been abandoned by my beast, I went to NY.

Delusions of ... well ... not Grandeur, exactly.

Both of Sophie's dog beds are in the wash.

Sophie's Speedy Recovery from Surgery

Truthfully, it hasn't been that speedy,
and according to her trained medical professionals,

not speedy enough.

She had her x-rays this morning and
everything looks fine,
but she has not been healing as quickly
as they would like, and they do believe she
has probably been a bit too active.


It's not terrible and it's not even not great.
It's just not perfect.


SO ....
Sophie is still on a reduced activity load.
She still can't really run and jump and play,
and definitely NO TENNIS BALLS!

But she can roll in the snow so her mission continues.

ReFOCUS

Sophie has grown weary of her
"quest for comments" mission
and has decided to take on a new challenge.

After much contemplation,
she settled on rolling in the snow.
-----
Not that this is much of a challenge for her.
The challenge really is for me.

Try photographing a dog wiggling around in the snow
in -15, with icy winds that make it feel like -26,
(according to the Weather widget on my desktop)
while wearing gigantic mittens.

But the time I was able to properly zoom out
to accommodate the action,
she was off.

Sophie's Blog Picked up for
Another Season

It's been like sweeps week over here to try to boost Sophie's flagging ratings. She's always been jealous of Tigre's oversea's attention, so we set out to even up the comments.

Our strategy? Hit the dog blogs.

Who knew there would be so many? Over the past few days, I've seen hundreds of dogs, each one better dressed than the next ... and some quite skilled on the treadmill.


Mr. and Mrs. Rusty Reed are definitely the highlight of our tour.

Brilliant!

(click here for more)

What else can I say?

Yes, it's beautiful.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Do you have any idea how frickin' cold it is?
No?
Well let me tell you.
It's so cold that Sophie won't to go out to poop.
She's just going to hold it until spring.

For those of you who want something more precise,
it's -18,
which in itself is not so bad except that with the wind chill,
it FEELS LIKE -31.

That's celsius, of course,
but for you Americans reading this, it is truly as cold as it sounds.

Brrrrrrrr.

Wanna Be My Friend?

Sophie joined Dogster today, mostly because I am procrastinating.

Dogstar is a massive, world-wide collection of dogs.
http://www.dogster.com/dogs/471973

It's Friendster for Dogs.
Remember Friendster? Does Friendster still exist?
Does anyone still have a Friendster account?

Anyway
I made it Sophie's mission on Dogster to collect Pup Pals (TM?) also named Sophie.
It seems a plausible mission and as good a reason as any to collect dog friends online.

Within moments of signing up, another dog recruited her! How exciting.
It wasn't a Sophie, but an Emma Peel.

Close enough. A friend is a friend, after all.
I thought it must have been Sophie's beautiful photo,
her impressive bio or maybe her recent surgery.
Whatever the case, I immediately accepted Emma's paw in friendship.
Emma is a gorgeous Swiss dog, who actually lives in Switzerland.
How cool! Sophie's first Dogster Pup Pal.

Ah yes...
Imagine my disappointment when I discovered that
Sophie is Emma's Pup Pal #5382!
Sophie hasn't even sniffed that many butts in her life.
Oh well. I guess Sophie will have to learn to be one of a crowd
instead of one of a kind.


On the other hand, if you know any dogs named Sophie .....

Sophie's Adventures with TPLO Surgery


As Week 7 draws to a close, we are anxiously anticipating Sophie's x-rays next week, which are sure to tell us that she can resume her life of chasing the tennis ball and attacking other dogs.
(Well, Schnauzer's at least).

Sophie, herself, is not anticipating the x-rays. She hates the prospect of being lifted up onto a table to have her picture taken and has been known to release her anal glands mid-hoist. I like to think of it as a cleanse.

Fingers crossed.
She seems to feel great. Let's hope she photographs well too.