Neighbor-Dogs

I try to take my dogs on walks as often as I can. I walk them to a near-by park and let them run around off their leashes as I sit down and read a book. During our walks, we come across other neighborhood dogs that I have made nic-names for. Want to meet them?

First, there is our neighbor's dog who I call the Evil Dog (I'll blog about it some other time) who ferociously barks and batters against his side of the fence as we go by. Then, on the corner of our street, there are the two dogs that I have dubbed Bizarro Ellie and Bizarro Sophie. (You know, like Seinfeld? Where there are characters who physically look like George, Jerry, and Kramer, but there personalities are complete opposites?) Anyway, these two dogs look similar to my dogs, with one being a medium-sized, blond Golden Retriever (Sophie) and the other a small, white, hairy counterpart (Ellie). Everytime we go by, they bark at us incessantly as my dogs have learned to politely ignore them.

There's also a dog right near the Bizarros I refer to as The Spazz because he spastically throws himself against his living room window in an attempt to reach us. Then, there's a dog that I like to call Sophie's Boyfriend. He is only out in his yard every once in a while, so we don't get to see him that much, but when we do, oh my goodness. Sophie is beside herself when she sees this dog. She tries to cross the street to get to him, and she cries and whimpers because she wants to go see him so badly. She won't stop craning her neck to look at him until we have rounded the corner and he's out of sight. Oh, puppy love.

When we get back from our walk, our other neighbor's dog is usually waiting on his side of the chain-link fence, watching for our return. This dog is one of the cutest dogs I've ever seen. He's a little skittish around people, but he's warmed up to me and I was able to read his name tag. His name is Koko. What kind of name is that for a boy dog? So instead, I affectionately call him Bruiser. He's full of character. He is able to jump over to our side of the fence by using a stump, and he performs very interesting tricks with his rope-loop toy. He flings it into the air with his mouth, and then catches it around his neck. I was impressed the first time I saw him do it. He sometimes sits atop his stump and watches me if I'm doing something outside. I don't like his owners very much, though, because I never see them play with him and he's always alone. They leave their gate open all the time, and as a result, I've caught him in the middle of the street more than once. I've had to herd him back to safety into his own yard. He's pretty cute, though, that Bruiser. Here's a picture of him supervising my outdoor work:
And those are our neighbor-dogs.