Of Dogs, Crawdads and Unintended Responses , or Hey, Someone Forgot to Tell Reisha that Dogs are Supposed to Like Water

Playing in the creek is part of what summer is all about.

When I was a kid I would go down to a small ditch by my house and catch crawdads. One time I took home a ton of them and put them in the kiddie pool that I had at the bottom of the slide on our playset. I had taken nail polish and labeled each one with a name. (I had not intended to kill them - I was too young to know what the polish would do to them.) I even tied bows onto some of them. My sister Amy came whizzing down the slide and into the pool full of crawdads. At first I thought her screaming was from joy. You see, my sister seemed to almost always be screaming about something, so this was not unusual. What tipped me off that she was unhappy was the jumping up and down from one foot to the other accompanied by the flailing arms. I tried to look innocent. I had not intended to upset her. I had plans to start an aquarium. I was going to sell tickets out of the window of my playhouse. I would be open on Sunday afternoons. I was worried about the crawdads, not her. I was also trying not to laugh. That would only make her more mad. I felt both sad and sneaky silly at the same time. I imagine my mom tried not to laugh, too. It was gross when they started to die and rot in the pool. I did not want to clean them up, but I did.

But I digress. This is not the river where the crawdads were. This is the Platte near the REI Flagship store in Denver.

The kids thought it would be nice to cool down. Reisha had a different attitude. Someone forgot to tell her that dogs are supposed to like the water. A few others were paddling around. Reisha woofed at them to tell them they should get out. They ignored her. She turned to me, pleading. "What did I do to deserve this?" her eyes said. I took pity on her and let her hang with me.

I stood on the shore and watched the kids. Occasionally I caught a glimpse of the schools of young fry testing the waters.

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I love funky movies. Here's one that you can rent. It makes me wish I had Netflicks:

Phoebe in Wonderland


Here's another video that you might find interesting:

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by extermitent