Dog Days

I ran across an old, bent-up picture on my dresser this morning, and I couldn’t help but laugh. In fact, I’m still laughing! The picture was one I took several years ago of Blessings 1 & 2. But itty-bitty, down in the corner of the picture, was our dog, inadvertently captured on film.

Zacchaeus is our little shih-tzu. He has a sweet temperament and that super-sweet, smooshy shih-tzu face. But I admit that he does have some quirky little habits. Off the top of my head, here are a few of them…

1.) He furiously scratches the floor as he is turning in circles. Nevermind that he’s scratching the tile floor… I know he’s just getting his bed ready because he eventually curls up and goes to sleep. I say it’s just an instinctual thing like if he was in the wild, but for the most part, the consensus of others (read this as: my husband) is that he might be a little nuts!

2.) He howls… not at the moon or at fire trucks but at the kids. He starts yelping away when the kids are crying too long or when they’re squealing too loudly or when they’re laughing too enthusiastically. (This howling is such a common occurrence that these days, he is even to the point that when he’s starting to holler, he’s also starting out the doggie door. He knows someone will soon be hollering back at him... “TAKE IT OUTSIDE, ZACCHAEUS!”)

3.) He licks the air. He does this quite a bit. I’m not sure what he’s after (maybe good smells?), but it’s a pretty funny sight when he’s just lick-lick-lickin’ away at nothing. Which brings me back to my LaughterThought for today-- Even funnier than his random licking is that my picture actually caught him mid-airlick. This candid shot definitely gives me the grins!

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