Dogs Know Shoes-

* To Readers-ignore the dates on all these photos. They were taken today. I have since re-educated the wayward camera responsible!



The pensive dogs pictured here are dogs without expectations. They have no immediate hopes because their owner is, at present, shoeless.

Anyone who has seen the film "Legally Blonde" remembers the scene in which Elle Woods exposes a prosecution witness who is lying about having had an affair with Ms Wood's client. The witness outed himself by making a bitchy comment about our heroine's shoes. Elle knows there was no affair, for her client is female, and the witness is gay.

"Gay men know shoes!", she tells her law partners.


Dogs know shoes as well, for shoes are the pedometers of their happiness.

My gray running shoes are a signifier of all sorts of pleasant things- damp walks in the woods, the smell of deer downwind, a chipmunk darting into a stone wall, a chicken wing dropped by a picnicker.

Unless- those same shoes go on late at night after I put on a blue scrub uniform. Then they mean 9 hours of bedroom detention (to prevent them from howling at the possums who are eating cat food on the porch).

Blue suede Oxfords might mean a trip to the store.Unless it is July, when no dog gets to wait in the car. If it is November, pleading and whining may get them into the front seat, though what is interesting about the Publix parking lot is lost on me, though I do not doubt this is my loss, since I do not live life with the optimism and exuberance of a dog.

I also have a pair of gold flats. Fast to get into and fast to get out of, which makes them, in any season, good for a fast trip outside to do the necessaries.

My beagle understands this, and he knows how much I appreciate speed. He knows I will be peevish if he tries to turn a bathroom break into an impromptu outing all over the parking lot.

The Shih Tzu, being stubborn and sometimes manipulative, sees those gold shoes and knows that here is opportunity. By refusing to do what he is supposed to do, he can get a trip down to a faraway grassy knoll or a fire hydrant, even at four in the morning. He does not care if his owner is freezing and wheezing and hissing all sorts of insults at him.

Dogs know shoes-