Dog Lips!

For the last couple of weeks, I've been puppysitting Ingrid the Labradoodle, littermate of beloved Ike. Her time with me thus far has been mostly confined to the usual: work at the office, obedience and walks in the neighborhood, Sunday mornings in church, outings to restaurants and coffee houses and the like. This has been a terrific opportunity for me to get to know her, because Ingrid isn't in my usual puppy group (someone from GDA asked me if I could watch her while her puppy raiser, Mary, is out of town for a few weeks tending to some unexpected family business).

She's quite a good girl! She settled into my apartment and my pseudo-schedule immediately and seemed to make herself right at home. Mary warned me that Ingrid has some dog distraction, though, so I thought a day at the annual Long Beach Walk to Save the Animals would be good practice (I took Lomax last year; it was our first GDA event together, so I was feeling a little nostalgic today). And since the event is in our area group territory, the South Bay Puppy Raisers always attend, so Ingrid got to meet some of her brother's friends.

This year we even put up the kissing booth! While it was thoughtful of the woman on the microphone to promote our little dollar-a-kiss fundraising booth, and even funny that she said, "who KNOWS what you might get for twenty," I would have appreciated it more had she made it clear that it would be the PUPPY giving the kisses.

I did get a few looks.