Ass-Kicking Dog

I'm back in town, and Enrico has headed back east for a friend's 40th birthday bash. Which means I'm on solo dog-walking duty. Normally Enrico carries the bulk of the dog-walking load.

Because Nelly launches into full battle mode each and every time she sees another dog, taking her out is like running a gauntlet. Our neighborhood has a lot of dogs, and I long ago picked specific routes that seem to have the lowest likelihood of encountering an off-leash dog, which can be downright traumatic. We also quickly developed a set of nicknames for all the individual dogs in the neighborhood, to help us keep on top of the dog topography.

For example, there was Pogo Dog, named because of her ability to shoot straight up in the air in order to continue barking at Nelly even after we'd passed on the other side of her shrubbery. We soon learned Pogo Dog's real name, and she lost her leaping abilities to advancing age and eventually death; but in my mind, she was always Pogo Dog.

We learn the real names of our immediate canine neighbors - Polly, Shep, Mambo - but mostly we just have nicknames. There's Fence-Climbing Dog, Little White Snack Dog, Ewok Dog - all pretty self-explanatory. There's Dancing Bear Dog, named not for its own behavior but for the fact that it barks ferociously from a second-floor balcony, inducing Nelly to dance and twirl on her back feet, lunging upward, looking for all the world like a dancing black bear cub. There was Kong, a big hulking dog, and I don't remember if his name came from his size or from the little rubber dog-toy of the same name.

I wonder if other neighbors do this same thing. If so, I'm pretty sure our guys are known as Bat-Shit Crazy Dogs.