Une Envie de Sel

From My Neighbor Totoro to My Dog Frank. Momentarily mud-free after his bath. Well, it's the weekend...I'm allowed a little mental meandering, right? 

I am kinda crazy about this dog. It came over me slowly. I'm capable of getting really batty over dogs - but not every dog. It takes a certain kind of dog, and when I got Frank, I was still in deep, dark mourning over my beloved Sam, a heeler who died almost exactly a year ago now. 

Also, Frank was a puppy - a really, really young puppy - when I got him. He was so young that his eyes had still not changed color. When I adopted Sam, he was two and a half, and already had his personality. With Frank, it was a little hard to tell what he would be when he was still only a moon-eyed baby. So I just sort of toted him around for a while wondering...will I love this dog? 

It has come over me gradually, but though he's a very different dog than Sam, I am definitely hooked. I love the freckles on his chin, and the way he makes little cooing sounds when he's feeling sappy.  I love how desperately sad his eyebrows get when he's in trouble. It's hard to tell what he is, exactly. The rescue place I got him from thought he was an Australian Sheepdog mix...which is possible. He's a very in-between dog - not a small dog but not a large dog. Not a lap dog, but far from an athlete. Whenever I see a King Charles Spaniel, I think there must be a link, because he looks just like them except without the long ears. He does not bark, not for anything. He is perhaps the laziest dog I've ever met, and yet he is oddly tireless if you take him on a run.  And - like the squirrel in the Moomin chronicles, he has a very, very, curiously extraordinarily marvelous tail!