Sirens

I live half a block from the State Capitol which means there's always police cars, ambulances, and fire trucks that scream by every seemingly half hour. It's awesome and I've adapted to the wailing of sirens to the point where it makes me suspicious if I don't hear that constant noise.

My apartment complex has an interestingly large amount of dogs. There's several on my floor and one of them is this annoying fat beagle. He howls and yowls every time it hears a cop car or whatever with a siren go by. It's terrible, it happens too often for me to think it's funny or cute.

Cooper, my super Cooper, doesn't howl at sirens. He doesn't yap when all the other dogs are yapping in the apartment complex. He marches to his own beat and thank god that tempo has nothing to do with all the other asshole dogs in my apartment.

Choices

Cooper has turned into a pretty stellar dog. Took him close to 4 years, but he has been so sweet and caring since the break up. I was crying today, sitting on the floor and talking to Cooper and Pickle because I'm dogsitting for Corey and while Pickle cowered in the back of his kennel, Cooper came out and sat next to me and leaned up against me.

He's been lying down next to me for the last 10 minutes. His head is constantly under my hand and I am so glad that I chose to keep Cooper over Pickle when Corey and I broke up.

Good dog

Sometimes I don't give Cooper enough credit when credit is due. Tyson and I broke up last Tuesday, but before we did we got in a motorcycle accident on Sunday. I have really bad road rash on my knees and hand on the right side and one of my biggest worries was that Cooper would want to smell and lick the wounds and they might get infected or something.

Surprisingly, he did sniff at them and I was getting ready to yell at him to back up, but all he did was sniff them and stare at me with the most pitying expression on his face. Obviously, I'm really depressed about the break up, I've been crying a lot and just lying in bed. Cooper keeps his space and when he thinks it's especially bad, he lightly jumps up on the bed and lays next to me. I think it's really sweet that he tries to comfort me and I also like that he gives me some space and can keep himself entertained.

He is a good dog in his own way. I have been comparing him to Sari, my first dog, and I never gave him a chance to be himself and accept him for the dog he is and not the dog I want.

Creepy man in a wheelchair

For awhile I thought about enrolling Cooper to be a therapy dog that visits hospitals and old people homes. I mean, he likes everyone he meets and he's an attention whore and for the most part, he's really good at not jumping on people. Then I got lazy and decided that while Cooper probably won't care being that close to dying people, I get uncomfortable around super old people who are hard of hearing because I don't like shouting at them, and I'm also afraid of sick people coughing on me or something germ-y like that.

Anyway, Cooper's been a little dick about going pee pee in the mornings; usually he sleepily wobbles outside, pees, and walks back to the door all with his eyes half-opened. Lately he's been taking his sweet time walking from bush to bush, tree to tree, parking meter to parking meter. As I haven't been getting enough sleep lately, this really annoys me and pisses me off to the point of tears. However, there's always a light at the end of the tunnel and that light is a creepy homeless guy in an electric wheelchair.

Cooper's terrified of wheelchairs but especially the motorized ones. I don't know why, but he just is. Thus, this ended my very brief dream of turning him into a therapy dog because he'd scream at the first person in a wheelchair he sees. Anyway, this creepy wheelchair man might also be slightly deranged because everytime he sees Cooper, he speeds up screaming "Puppy, puppy, puppy, puppy!" all while laughing a high pitched hyena giggle. This scares Cooper shitless.

Yesterday morning Cooper had that mischievious gleam in his eye and I knew this was going to take awhile. As soon as we got outside, we both hear a faint whirring noise and "puppy!!!!" It's the crazy homeless man in the wheelchair. Cooper's eyes go wide, frantically runs down the stairs and pees on the bush planted right outside. He never pees on that bush. I can almost hear his little voice in his head: "Oh no! It's him!! Hurry, hurry, hurry pee!" He finished in record time and jumped at the door scratching it in vain all while looking over his shoulder to see where the creepy homeless wheelchair man was.

Now if I can only pay that creepy wheelchair man to roll down my block every morning around 6:45...

Jealous?

Tyson moved in with me for the next 5-6 weeks while he's doing contract work in Denver. So, the two of us gets to share my tiny living space with Cooper who doesn't seem to enjoy the extra attention or company. Cooper's always been a mama's boy and something tells me that he doesn't want to share my attention with Tyson.

Normally, Cooper likes everyone that walks in the door and wants to be their best friend for life. When we get home, Cooper runs past Tyson ignoring him completely while jumping into my legs. He waits until Tyson's hand is centimeters from touching him before he runs off or turns his head. Tyson knows that Cooper's a bitchy little queen but this is starting to hurt his feelings.

Cooper won't do tricks for treats if Tyson asks him to. Cooper won't acknowledge Tyson's presence and whenever Tyson tries to get his attention, Cooper firmly turns his head away from Tyson and stares at me like, "I don't like him in our house. I'm not listening to him."

The weird thing is, when we're outside Cooper wants to walk next to Tyson and gazes up at him kind of adoringly with a smile on his face. I just don't get why he doesn't like him when we're inside. It's not like Tyson invades Cooper's space or anything, but Cooper just seems set on ignoring Tyson until we're outside in the great outdoors.

It's soooo hot!

I wish Cooper was brave enough to go for a swim. And I also wish he wasn't so afraid of water because it is so hot here and I would love to spray him with the hose but he won't let me. I guess he can suffer through the heat.

Tulip

This is Super Cooper with a tulip attached to his collar. He loves flowers. And prancing amongst them. And prancing in general.

Picture taken at the University of Colorado at Boulder

I was trying to get him to drink out of a water fountain. He stuck his head into the stream of water as I turned in on and water gushed into his ear. He's afraid of water fountains now. Oops.