The 3 Stooges

I must have a sign on my forehead, invisible to me but blatantly obvious to everyone around me, that says: "Please, give me animals to care for!! Preferably difficult cases!! And give them over to me for several days in a row, since clearly I have nothing else to do!!"
Because after the Infamous Kitten Incident (see Attack of the Kitties, May 6 post), I have once again ended up with multiple, domesticated (arguably) creatures under my wings--and this time it's dogs. A Whole Lotta Dog, to be precise.
It happened like this. My friend's father passed away unexpectedly, and she called me up from work and asked if I would be willing to dog- and house-sit while she and her husband went home to Florida to be with her family. We had only known each other for a period of several weeks, and the sum total of our interactions amounted to:

1.5 softball games and
.5 cornhole/grillout parties.

But she asked me because, as she put it, "I trust you." (This is one of those blessed moments in your life when you realize you must be doing something right.) I said yes, of course, even though I had never met her dogs--I am, by definition, a dog person, and I figured it couldn't be too taxing.

This is how I ended up dogsitting Merlin, Maverick, and Samson, otherwise known as The Three Stooges. (Points if you get the name reference for the first two--my friend's husband is in the Air Force, if that helps.)

Merlin and Maverick are black German shepherds, and Samson is, appropriately, a giant black and white Newfoundland. As mentioned above, this amounts to A Whole Lotta Dog. Although they are full grown, they are still in the teenage stage developmentally, and, as their owners put it, they are "really stupid" (they haven't trashed the house yet, so as far as I'm concerned, they're not all that dumb). Merlin and Maverick, who are brothers, were produced through some importunate breeding and thus are not considered high-quality dogs in a lineage sense, but in my opinion they're still some good-looking animals. Samson was an orphaned puppy being fostered by my friend's former boss when he decided he could no longer keep a steadily growing giant; my friend, having grown up with Newfs, took him on as a charity case and fell in love. He is the slowest of the three, but quite affectionate. All of them are nuts about tennis balls, shoes, and licking me in the face to wake me up in the morning. A more effective alarm clock I have yet to find.
I've been dogsitting since Thursday night (this will be night 5), and I have to say, despite the thick black and white hairs showing up in everything I own (including some I discovered between the keys of my laptop when I opened it this morning at work), it has its merits. First of all, as I said before, I am a dog person, and my family dog (a cute if somewhat aloof beagle named Belle) died in March. So it was high time I got some doggy TLC! Secondly, as I noted, these are some surprisingly beautiful animals, and once they warm up to you, they are all fun and games and let's-jump-on-Leah-because-we've-forgotten-we're-not-puppy-sized-anymore! (We just played a round of that and now the couch is vibrating because they are all panting in synch.) It's a fascinating process to discover the dynamics among the three of them and to learn their personalities. And you know, it's nice to have someone, or someones, to come home to. Even if they slobber. (In your armpit.) It gives your life a little more sense of purpose to be caring for other creatures, whether human or animal.
I'll try to take some pictures over the next few days to post here--particularly if I can capture that quizzical "What is it? WHAT IS IT??!!" look that they pull off so well anytime a doorbell rings on TV or I move more than a quarter of an inch from my seat.

Here's to lazy summer days sitting in a hammock with a beer and a saliva-covered tennis ball and the blue sky and three canine companions to keep you busy.