10 on the 10th, uhm, 9th - Dogs

Early once again. The 10th is Thursday - silent movie day.
So I'm already here today to talk about the prompt "Marsha in the Middle" gave us - our favorite dogs. Dogs??? Everyone knows I'm a cat person (you will know it even more in a few days)!

Luckily, I love dogs almost as much as cats in all shapes and sizes, but obviously I never lived with one. Marsha gave us an escape route for that, though. 
"They can be dogs you've owned, grew up with, are on tv, dog food cans, whatever!" Sure, Marsha. I always fall in love with dogs on dog food cans, sigh. But hey, I think I know a good "whatever" ...
As usual, the order is quite random.

1. Flocki was the first dog I met on the farm on my friend's parents. As the farm wasn't close to us, I didn't get to see her as much as I would have liked. I loved that sweet girl and I still miss her. I even got a tee with a picture of her once, it must still be in my wardrobe.
There's one unforgotten story. Once my friend visited her parents over the weekend and I came along and slept on the living room couch. The next morning I woke up to a nose in my face. My friend's mother told me that Flocki had insisted on seeing me first 🥰 quite the shock to my friend who was usually the first one to get woken up by her on visit weekends. When Flocki comes up in our stories, so does this story ... my friend still isn't over it, hehe!

2. I don't have a picture of Hera because she was the German shepherd on the farm of my godmother's parents when I was a kid. When I think of Hera, the first image that comes to mind is her waiting for the kittens to be done when raiding her bowl.

3. Chloey is a family member's dog. She's a French mademoiselle who found a new home in Germany via a shelter for polar dog breeds.
She keeps reminding me of a fox with those ears and this face and red coat (lighter or darker depending on the light), so I like to call her "onser Fichsle" which is just Swabian for "our little fox".
Do you see her grinning? That's because she knows exactly she has her two people wrapped around each single paw. The motto is: "Everything for the dog. Everything for the dog." (You're legally bound to say it twice, I know because we have the same one here, only with "cat".)

4. is a double pack. Kosimo, called Kosel, and Nemo, called Schnuck, are the resident dogs in our house. As you can see they are natural models, so natural indeed that they don't believe in weird poodle cuts (which traditionally had to do with poodles going into the water as they were bred for the duck hunt, but which are merely for optics today).
Kosel is all over me sometimes and I love it even if he had the habit to steal one of my pink shoes from the hallway. He loves pink and had to have this flamingo that his nephew is trying to steal. Just look at those dark eyes.
Nemo holds back with me a bit more after trying to knock me over for a greeting, but the other day we had a big hug.

5. Struppi was the first dog I met at my best childhood friend's house. He was a wirehaired dachshund and for some reason I always think of him as a little grumpy old man. No picture available, sorry.
Of course, there are quite a few memories connected with him, but I'll share just one.
We were in the car. My friend's Mom had made given us both a slice of bread with butter and salami on it. Ah, you know where this is heading, don't you? My friend and I sat in the back and Struppi next to me. One moment he looked out of the window, the next moment the salami was gone from my bread and he still looked out of the window!
In my innocence, I had held the slice of bread up and looked away for a second. It was practically like an offer and he took me up on it so fast I didn't even see it. 

6. Finni was another friend's dog, also a dachshund, but a longhaired one.
I can't remember Finni ever being anything but nice, quite amazing for a dachshund, a breed that can be very stubborn (I knew more than just Struppi and Finni). The only thing I remember her being extremely stubborn about was not eating a certain brand of kibbles.
There is a picture of her somewhere, a Polaroid, in a stack of loose photos, I don't know how well it still looks after all those years. If I find it, I'll add it. 

Of course I have met a lot of other dogs over the years and sometimes it was love at first sight, but often we had to part ways after just one fleeting encounter ... at the vet's, on the train, downtown ...
So here comes the "whatever" now.
There are a few dogs on the internet I'm in love with (or should I say I have a parasocial connection to?).

7. It started with Olive and Mabel.
They are the pals of Scottish sports commentator Andrew Cotter. When Covid hit and there wasn't any sports, Cotter commentated "The Dog's Breakfast Grand Final" - which the older and more experienced Olive won, by the way. Sorry for the spoiler.
Cotter followed up with more hilarious videos, for example Olive and Mabel lying on their online dating profiles or joining a gym, but even just him walking through his garden with the labradors has something very calming.



8. I found Ollie and Tato on Instagram and instantly fell for them. Their videos make me happy and give me a moment of peace, much needed these days. Who wouldn't be happy seeing labradors doing their own version of the Lion King (very impressive, that one), Ollie caring for his own pumpkin or Tato (the baby raptor) and his plotting against Santa?
Animal videos are the only time I'm not even disturbed by AI voices. I live for Ollie's mlems and Tatey's pew-pews.

There isn't much on YouTube as they are mostly on Instagram and TikTok, but here's one example.
Most of the time, they are perfectly normal dogs with normal lives, by the way.

9. I also found the Sisters of the Snoot on Instagram, well, the algorithm threw them in my path, start with one dog channel and they pop up like crazy.
The Sisters are Abby (void horse = borzoi), Cleo (chaos worm = silken windhound), and Marcy (void horse in training = younger borzoi). I have no idea why it's so funny to me to hear them being called noodles.
There isn't that much on YouTube here, either.



10. is not exactly a dog. It's a lot of dogs to fall in love with.
It's a channel on several platforms which constantly makes me laugh and cry, not hard to do even with good things. I'm talking about "We Rate Dogs".
"We Rate Dogs" started on Twitter almost ten years ago by - surprise! - rating dogs or "complaining" about people sending pictures in of non-dogs (aka "seals", "polar bears", "sharks", etc.).
Nowadays "We Rate Dogs" is also on Facebook, Instagram, BlueSky, TikTok, YouTube and who knows where else. That could be reason to turn me off in other cases, but the owner Matt Nelson has not only turned this into a job by saying "The dogs were good again this week. Here are my top 5."




Part of the proceeds go to the 15/10 Foundation helping to sponsor dogs with medical or behavioral issues and supporting rescue organizations.

There you go, I made it all the way to 10 😊

P.S. How could I forget Snoopy???