Meet Racer

Nile is in dog camp this week, and he is working with a dog from the pound (or a "rescue dog" in more politically-correct terms). His dog is named Racer (an inside joke, more on that later) and is a 3 year old black Labrador retriever. Here he is.

We went to the camp location Sunday, for them to talk to Nile and try to match him to a dog. But when we walked in, they already (apparently) had decided that he would take Racer's foster-brother (I know, funny, huh?), another black lab named Cyrus. Now Cyrus is a pretty big, powerful-sounding moniker, isn't it? Yes, Cyrus was a really big, wild boy. Nile tried to be a sport about it, but Cyrus was dragging him all over that room. I could see that he wasn't digging it. And Racer (who is smaller and much, much calmer) was just watching. Pretty soon the camp staff offered Nile to have Racer as his dog instead. We took him outside and in my very non-dog-expert opinion, Racer was a good dog. Easy-going. His only character flaw seems to be that he likes to slobber. But he doesn't jump on you or bark a lot, and doesn't yank you around by the leash.

Well, it's day 4 of camp and I would call it a success. Here's a picture of Nile with Racer. He looks pretty OK with it all, huh? (I mean Nile, ha.)

Today they were supposed to bathe the dogs and tomorrow they have a little showcase where the dogs do tricks that the kids have taught them all week. My mom will go to that, because since it's Friday I'll be at work. That's a bummer, but Fridays I work with Bethany and Curtis, so we'll be having an enormously good time. It's wonderful to have co-workers that you not only respect and learn from, but also enjoy and laugh with. And they are both that.

It remains to be seen if Racer will join our family. Nile has another week of dog camp, so we are delaying the decision until then. Nile is worried about how Racer will affect Gary, our cat. So we'll have to talk about it and figure out what to do. And the assumption of responsibility is significant.

Dani is loving NYC. Got a text from her -- guess what? She needs cash. And she went to see Spiderman on Broadway -- loved it. Oh, and the class at Columbia is hard. What? Classes are hard there? Gee.