Me So Alpha

It is uncharacteristically hot here; we went up to the dog run at 10 this morning and all the dogs were lolling about looking pained when Emily capered over looking for Fun. Then we packed up YG and drove her down to her next Girl Scout camp, in Pescadero (about 40 miles away). The traffic was dreadful going down, but we were all cheery (Emily is at last growing resigned to car rides) and on the way back stopped at a fruit stand and bought corn and pears and an artichoke and cherries and a pint of strawberries; this last was gone almost before the ignition was turned on, and we went back and got a flat. They're huge and sweet and edible in a sort of popcorny-pop-em-in-your-mouth sort of way. Drove home, then I went off with Spouse to his office to help him move some things around, which plan was short-circuited by lack of A/C in his building. So home, where I went off again to feed a friend's cats and collect her mail.

Each one of these partings seems to fill Emily with apprehension and woe. Further, if all four of us are sitting on the floor, mine is the lap she wants; yesterday when we were working on recall in Puppy Manners class (recall is what you call it when your dog comes when you call reliably, despite distractions) mine was the voice that cut through the joy and made her head come up.

"Oh yeah," said the lead trainer. "You're the Alpha Dog in the family fer sure."

SG and YG didn't seem to have a problem with this, but I think the Spouse was somewhat taken aback.