Red, White, and Blondie

Our alpha male white toy poodle, Skipper is head over heals in love with the at least four times his size Blondie, the Xoloitzquintle, or Mexican hairless dog who lives a few doors down. When Blondie's owner, Fran drops in, she usually brings Blondie with her, which absolutely thrills our little poodle. Skipper spends most of his time trying to become intimately acquainted with Blondie, which is endlessly annoying to my friend's pet. Skipper is completely undaunted with his one-sided devotion and admiration of the large mostly hairless Latin lady dog.

While painting yesterday, Fran and Blondie, so named for the few tufts of blond hair on her forehead, came over for a visit. A few minutes later, my friend, Deb also stopped by, but that's another story....We were all outside in the backyard enjoying the sunny weather and light refreshments when I noticed two big globs of red paint on my khaki trousers. No problem. People (and their pets) are more important than things, so I ignored the paint; there would be time to clean it later. That is, until Blondie, in a valiant effort to escape Skipper's advances, rubbed against my trouser leg. She ended up with red paint smeared all over the skin of her back. Fran sent me inside to change clothes before the mess spread to other random dog or body parts. Had the paint been on Skipper, it would have been a major ordeal to clean, but the paint on Blondie's skin cleaned right up with Dawn dish soap, water, and a little light scrubbing. Not too worse for wear, with more scrubbing and Dawn dish soap (Dawn takes grease "and oil based paint" out of your way), the khakis cleaned up, too.

Skipper is on pins and needles waiting for the next social call from Blondie. As I enjoy my companionship with Blondie's owner, Fran, I'm also looking forward to their next visit.