Calvin is a largish, short-haired dog, mostly black with bits of tan under his chin and on his chest. He is thick-bodied and muscular; his ancestry seems to include at least a little bit of Rottweiler. Although he's not visibly slobbery, everything his mouth touches is instantly sopping wet. He likes to carry his soggy toys around in his teeth. When I scolded him for chewing my shoe he looked so sorry, skulking around the house with his tail low and looking at me with, well, puppy-dog eyes.
Josie is a slimmer short-haired mix, mostly white with tan and black spots. Likely encoded in her genes are centuries of accumulated species knowledge about hunting, as yet untapped by her. Indeed, she was the more excited dog upon yesterday's chipmunk sighting. She's needier than Calvin. She often gazes at me longingly and mournfully. Before I'd even realized Calvin had my shoe, Josie knew he'd done something bad and had already slipped upstairs to the bedroom to disconnect her self from the "bad dog" behavior.
They're eerily quiet, perhaps because of the patented Bark Control® system whose box I saw on the shelves. If we hear another dog barking on our walks, they glance nervously toward it, but pick up the pace in the other direction. They stare in fascination at people on bicycles, and, when they draw near, lunge at the bikes in excitement. They're not trained, but when Calvin slipped out of the house off leash this morning, he came right back at my first call. I haven't checked to see if he's neutered but his attempts to mount Josie last night suggest that he's not. When it's time for bed they race for their cages. Good dog!
