Flop

And while on pets, here’s the new addition to our family.


Looks coy and innocent but she's very street-smart, being one of the pups I mentioned in these posts. After the last of her siblings got adopted she was left by herself and the adult dogs in the neighborhood were snapping at her, so we decided to take her in – she spends the days with my mom (who pampers her outrageously) and then sulks when she has to come to our (considerably less exciting) apartment for the night. (It must feel like having to go to a boarding-school hostel each night, as my wife puts it.) She's long-limbed and has magnificent frown lines that remind me of Laurence Olivier playing Heathcliff. The resemblance isn't immediately apparent, but trust me.

We’re still undecided on a name: informally she’s Foxy, because mum believes she’s reincarnated from a recently deceased dog she used to call by that name. I’ve suggested Flopsy because of her ears and because it sounds enough like Foxy for her not to get too confused at this late stage, but my mother objects that we’d then have to nickname her “Flop”, which would be pessimistic. She wants her to be a very successful dog.

(And no, I won't be sending photos of her to unsuspecting people on email. Can't afford to do that after all my rantings about parents who share baby pictures.)