Delilah marches to her own beat

I own, I’m ashamed to admit, several pairs of those horrid, clunky foam Crocs. Yes, they’re ugly, but they’re also useful for scooping poop (you can hose them off after stepping the inevitable land mine that was hidden in the grass) and great for wearing when washing floors or hanging around near the pool.

A few minutes before I started this entry, Delilah ran past me with her head stuck inside of one of my Crocs. Not with the Croc in her mouth, mind you – with her whole head stuck inside the shoe, wedged in like… well, like my foot inside the same shoe, actually. She then careened into the coffee table, smacked her (thankfully foam encased) head on the side of it, and fell over on her side. Where she fell asleep. And yes, I’m sure she was asleep and not passed out cold, because A) she was snoring and B) I checked.

What’s oddest about all of this isn’t that my dog fell asleep with her head stuck in a shoe, but that I wasn’t particularly surprised that she did.

Delilah is weird. In a house full of strange dogs with “unique” personalities, Delilah gives proof to that old T Shirt slogan “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro”.

Let’s compile a short list of ways in which Delilah is differently abled from the other Frenchies.

• She won’t come down the stairs
• She grazes nearly constantly on plants in the yard. This isn’t the occasional bout of grass eating, either – grazing is Delilah’s avocation, and she takes it seriously. We once watched her spend a good twenty minutes studiously snipping plants with her teeth and chewing them like a contented moo cow.
• She prefers sitting on the upper backs of chairs, like a parrot. We’ve caught this on film, and it also captures her:
• ..distinctly chimp like sound effects, which sound something like “oooph”. I guess she can’t pronounce her ‘W’s
• She is disturbed by pop cans, and finds them untrustworthy
• Her agile tail, which is an effective barometer of her mood, sets her apart from the other dogs, and makes them regard her with disdain and suspicion (“What’s that thing on her butt, and why is it moving?”).
• She doesn’t really understand dog-dog interaction, likely because she was bottle raised. She gets upset when play turns rough, and hides inside the leather recliner. Yes, I said inside – she slides into the back of it and stays there until things calm down.
• She has a giant freak tongue. We theorize it takes up most of the space inside her skull that should have held her brains
• She can move objects with her mind. I’m just kidding – she can’t actually do that last one. She wishes she could, though.

Here’s a video of Delilah barking at a scary, scary pop can. Sorry about the soundtrack, but I shot it through the window, and all you could hear was the TV in the background.