Toivo & Her Twin

... pose in the noontime sunshine

The Bottle Cap Game

Toivo's favorite game, one played again and again ... bottle caps placed on the mantle to be batted onto the floor whether from a precarios perch ...


... or with a big stretch. When Toivo was a kitten, she used to deposit the bottle caps on my lap, asking for another round!

The Patience of Kong

Lady's taken to waiting patiently just outside the kitchen -- where I can't leave without stepping either on or over her -- for a treat inside her Kong ball. The "new game" is that once it's filled, she does a Sit/Stay (she likes this so much, she's even doing it without asking!) while I hide the Kong somewhere and she does a Hunt It Up, her tail wagging the whole time, looking behind doors, up the stairs, on window sills, around furniture, even right on her chair. She * always * finds it!

Ink in Sunshine

More cat shadows, this time Toivo ...

Lady & Her Football

Silly Dog: She sure has favorite toys! This is her "football" and I found it when cleaning out the dogwood garden. When I threw it to her, she went nuts -- tossed it up and down all along the back yard, rushed it to the front, batted it around, came running around to the back again. By the time I got the camera, believe it or not, she was pretty calm!

Video Sharing at DropShots.com

Oh Soooo Tired

After 45 minutes of one loooong fun ... oops, I mean run ... after another at Puppy Choir, Lady is zonked. She comes outside to sit in the sun on the patio with me but isn't her usual playful self.

Ghost Cat

What a weird double exposure -- how it happened, I have no idea. I was trying to catch the shot of Toivo batting at the spinner in the dishwasher but she moved away. This is the result!

Toivo with Lenten Grass

On Day 8, the grass is really greening up!

The First Skipper

From my Dad in today's mail ...

"The First Skipper, who like all dogs loved to chase most anything thrown, would dash excitedly into Beaver Dam Creek at Rockwell in pursuit of a thrown stone. Not, of course, able to see it, she would stick her head into the water, find any stone on the stony bottom, and dutifully and proudly bring it to the miscreant who thusly teased the wonderful little companion of countless up-and-down-the-crick miles along the Skunk and Squaw Creek at Ames, and the Beaver Dam and the West Fork of the Iowa River, the latter four miles south of Rockwell."

Picture taken in 1936, in the back, Martha Kellogg (Frolander), Oliver William (Bill) Kellogg, in the front Marvin (Marv) D Kellogg and baby Edward (Ed) Kellogg (that "baby" celebrated his 70th birthday last month!)

Serendipity strikes: My Dad reports that the 'black blob' at Marv's feet (which I hadn't seen) is actually the black dog named ... yes ... Skipper! Skipper was a rat terrier, all black except for her white chest and feet.

I See You!

Mongrel Heart

Unlike the calculated expressions of feeling common to its human masters, there is nothing disingenuous about the way a dog praises, celebrates, frets, or mourns. In this poem David Baker gives us just such an endearing mutt. (from today's Christian Science Monitor, forwarded by my Dad who remains dogless except in poetry ...)

Mongrel Heart

Up the dog bounds to the window, baying

like a basset his doleful, tearing sounds

from the belly, as if mourning a dead king,

and now he's howling like a beagle - yips, brays,

gagging growls - and scratching the sill paintless,

that's how much he's missed you, the two of you,

both of you, mother and daughter, my wife

and child. All week he's curled at my feet,

warming himself and me watching more TV,

or wandered the lonely rooms, my dog shadow,

who like a poodle now hops, amped-up windup

maniac yo-yo with matted curls and snot nose

smearing the panes, having heard another car

like yours taking its grinding turn down

our block, or a school bus, or bird-squawk,

that's how much he's missed you, good dog,

companion dog, dog-of-all-types, most excellent dog

I told you once and for all we should never get.

Reprinted from 'The Southeast Review,' Vol. 23, No. 2, 2005, by permission of the author, whose newest book of poetry is 'Midwest Eclogue' (W.W. Norton).

What's Under Here, Anyway?

Toivo the eight-year old 'kitten' makes games out of everything!