remember when i told you that there were all those cute agreeable good-natured dogs posing happily for their people in the tulip fields and mine wasn’t one of them?

in the first two photos, atlas was attempting to rush me. in the last three, i tried to make him stop and stand still, just for a second, so he looked everywhere but at me while trying to sneak by me anyway.

can you see the spray of drool in the last photo? that’s how quickly he moved his head past me. he really is a creature of movement. i wonder if this is a weim thing.

by the way, all of this took place in less than three minutes. i need the arm strength of an amazon and the speed of a jungle cat to live with this dog. i have the first. clearly i’m still working on the second.

i was actually going to title this post the evolution of  a nickname until i saw these photos.

why? yesterday, atlas acquired a new nickname: waffles.

wondering how on earth he got that one? easy. it went from woof-y to wuffy to wuffles to ruffles (have ridges) back to wuffles to waffles.

all those cute agreeable good-natured dogs posing happily for their people in the tulip fields – and this is what i get. (if you can’t tell, this is the tail end of a yawn.)

to be fair, i am only realizing now that he must have been staring into the sun. no wonder i had such a hard time getting him to look at me.

i love him anyway. and in our next life, when i am the dog and he is the photographer, i will try to make up for it and pose agreeably for him, at least once or twice.

if you were a fly on the wall, you would hear silly (one-sided) conversations with atlas that sound like this:

“i love you so much, atlas. you are the cutest puppy ever. i don’t know what i would do without you. well, that’s not entirely true. i would do the same things i do with you, only without you.”

or this:

“atlas, sweetie, i love you more than all the gold in china. is there even gold in china? i should look that up. there’s probably tea. i love you more than all the tea in china. except i don’t love tea.”

or this, sung to the tune of the brady bunch theme song:

“you are my puppy, my little puppy. you are the cutest little puppy in the world. you are oh so sweet. how i love you. even though you aren’t a girl.” (the last line changes. another popular choice is “even though you have a tail”.)

on atlas’s birthday, i found a spot on the trail where he could run free for a moment. i had been trying to take a birthday picture but he was very uncooperative; either he wouldn’t look at me, or he made faces at me with his ears. he really doesn’t like having to stand still. i guess i can’t blame him. anyway, i finally gave up and captured him in motion instead.

it makes me extra-happy to see him racing up and down the trails. not that i didn’t enjoy it before, but now it’s doubly enjoyable because it means his foot is hale and hearty.

dear atlas,

today, you are ten years old. can you believe it?

i don’t know how we’ll celebrate, but i’m guessing we’ll do what we always do, which means i’ll take you for a hike and then to the kitty store for a treat. (just between us, i suspect that if you try to sneak a second pig ear from the bin today, i won’t make you put it back.)

did you know that when i took this picture, you were two years old? if it weren’t for the silver hairs on your chin and your general disapproval of bouncy puppies, i’d think you hadn’t aged a day.

i loved you then and i love you now.

i love you when you escape out the front door and ignore me when i call you. i love you when you eat something gross and then smile open-mouthed at me so i can smell it. i love you when you kick me in your sleep. i love you when you have an accident in the house and i have to clean it up. i love you when you pull on your leash. i love you when you forget our “no barking in elizabeth’s ear in the car” policy and bark in my ear in the car. i love you when you are wet and muddy. i love you when you wake me up three times in the night to go to the bathroom and i am bleary-eyed and cross and incoherent.

i love you when you see that i’m crying and come and sit in front of me with wide eyes. i love you when you let out a contented sigh and close your eyes because i sat down on the bed next to you in the evening with a book. i love you when you race down the stairs because i asked you if you want to go on a hike or go on an adventure. i love you when you rest your head on the armrest in the car and stare at me while i’m driving. i love you when you bound back and forth on the trails and then stop in front of me with a giant smile. i love you when you steal and eat the empty toilet-paper roll.

you are the best four-legged buddy in the world. you are silly and saucy and serious and stubborn and smart and you can run circles around me even with a splint on your leg.

when i first saw you, my heart cracked open, and i have never been the same. you have taught me so much about life and love and i am a better and bigger person because of you.

happy birthday, my dear puppy. i love you more than all the stars in the sky and all the fish in the sea. i hope you know that, today and always.

a week or so before atlas turns 10, shall we see what he looked like as a puppy, nine short-long years ago?

look at that – he looked exactly the same. he even had the same expression when i tried to play william wegman with him.

i forgot to show you a picture of atlas and his thanksgiving dinner!

if atlas were writing this post, he would say, “look at my empty bowl. there was a giant turkey and an entire table full of food and they didn’t give me any of it. poor me. i was so hungry.”

ha.

first of all, he eats at the speed of lightning. i don’t think he even chews his food. i had my camera ready before i gave him his bowl and i still couldn’t capture it. second of all, he ate about three dinners. amy fed him turkey while she was carving it. i gave him his bowl of food before we ate. while we ate, he wandered – happy and drooling – back and forth between amy and me, the two people he knew would feed him.

speaking of things atlas would say, here is another one of his opinions: “people don’t bring bread for the ducks. they bring bread for me!” you know, because the ducks are well-fed and he is not. if there are no ducks and people around, i let him eat it, mostly because i’m not convinced that bread is good for ducks.

want to know just how much atlas loves food? he doesn’t like water. he will only rarely go into the water after me, his favorite person. but once, he walked right into the pond to get a tiny piece of bread.

in order of love, it goes kitties, food, then me.

a wordless weimaraner wednesday.

i took atlas back to the sandy river delta (that’s where life with splint began) last week for his first off-leash hike since october. he was so happy. happy happy happy. he raced up and down the trail ahead of me.

half of me was happy with and for him. half of me was inwardly wringing my hands and thinking, “slow down, little puppy, slow down. why can’t you be more cautious? what if we just walked. slowly.”

i did manage to keep my thoughts and my hand-wringing to myself. not that atlas would have listened anyway.

in other news, i am pretty sure the hair on atlas’s chin has turned silver. unless it was always silver – it’s so hard to remember. i don’t want my puppy to have silver hair! i know he’s almost ten, but i want him to stay young forever.

isn’t he handsome. i think he is the best and smartest and sweetest and most handsome dog in the whole wide world. (with the exception of your dog, of course. your dog is too.)

i love him times a million billion and seventy three forty seven.

i want to reach through the screen and wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him on the cheek. which he doesn’t love, but will occasionally tolerate. lucky for me, i can just turn around and do it. shhhhhh. don’t tell him i’m coming!