This is Riley. 

He’s my 6 yr old Mini-Doxie, although he’s not quite so “mini” right now as he needs to lose about 3- 4 lbs.  That’s not much for you and me, but when your total body weight is 15lbs….its A LOT.  Spring is coming, and we will get outside a little more after work since it won’t be dark by the time I get home.  I’m sure that will help, cuz this (see picture below) is his very favorite thing to do…..

It usually doesn’t take him long to slim down though.  Like humans, he just needs a little encouragement, and a little discipline when it comes to his portion sizes.

Animals are mostly creatures of habit.  Riley is definitely no exclusion.  He carefully executes the same routine every night when I come home from work.  It’s actually a 3-part routine.  First, he greets me at the door, spring-jumping like a little flea, and wagging his tail so hard it’s practically swinging his entire rear-end back and forth. Oh yeah did I mention that because they have such long backs, it’s not good for Doxies to “jump”.  I think I have a better chance of winning the Lottery than of keeping him from jumping (seriously).  But, it’s hard to beat that absolutely unbridled greeting at the door everyday. I love it!

  Anyway, the second part is to go grab a toy, and run (I do mean RUN) as FAST as he can up and down the hallway, into the family room, around the coffee table and then back down the hallway.  Repeat.  Several times.  When he’s done with that, the last part of his routine, is taking his toy over to where his food dish is in the kitchen and drops it by the dish, as if to say, “here’s my offering to the dog food gods, now feed me please!”. If you arent’ there by the food with him, he begins “talking” and dancing, and basically being extremely obnoxious, until he get’s your attention.  If you don’t pay attention to him (heaven forbid), and follow him to the kitchen, he grabs the “offering” (toy) he dropped by the food dish, and RUNS over to you, makes eye contact with you, as if saying “He-LLOooooooo! Here is my offering, DUH.  Come and FEEEEEED MEEEEE”, and then RUNS back to the food dish and drops his toy, AGAIN. unfortunately, he has not quite mastered the art of putting his toys BACK in his basket when his ritual is done.  So pretty much they are just left to die by the food dish. And the next night, we do it all over again. Here caught on film, is a rare and unusual glimpse into the world of the sacrificial dinner ceremony…

And a couple MORE days go by….. the “offerings” start to pile up….

Notice the same piercing stare in both photos.  It’s not easily ignored.

That’s our Riley! 😉