Thursday, May 10th, 2012
Central Park East - 6:35am

Good morning!  Another rainy day here in NYC.  Looks like it's supposed to be relatively nice Fri, Sat, and a bit cloudy Sunday. 

Then more rain again early next week.  It's not so bad - like I've mentioned before, it's sometimes nice in the rain.  Much quieter and more serene in the Park.  Weirdly enough, I saw two really nasty dog interactions this morning - both involving non-neutered, male, Standard poodles.  Both of them were on-leash when it happened.  In the first one, a friendly but really BIG yellow lab named Tebow ran up to the poodle to sniff it (butt first = good dog manners) - and the poodle FREAKED out.  Barking, growling, lunging, teeth bared.  Tebow ran off with his tail between his legs.  Then it happened again right in front of me on my walk back to the apartment.  Right at 3rd & 71st, a lady (she's weird - I see her every day and she's just weird), was walking her 3 poodles (1 standard, the other two are miniature - all are assholes), when an older boxer on-leash approached cautiously to sniff.  Again - unprovoked complete and utter freakout by all 3 (instigated by the big one).  Pretty unusual morning in that sense - usually the dogs in the Park are quite friendly with one another and there are very rarely fights.  Sofie was off leash in the first case but steered clear of that poodle. 

She's become a pretty good gauge of character.  She'll run up to some people - and completely ignore others.  There's one door man who always pets her too rough and she doesn't like him (it's embarrassing for me b/c he's such a nice guy).  There's also a nice boy who is mentally disabled who works unpacking the trucks up at Grace's Market.  He always tries to say hello to Sofie but she cowers, runs under my legs, and puts her tail between her legs. She's even more discriminating when it comes to dogs.  The other day a big, handsome, Rhodesian Ridgeback was just standing stark still in the middle of one of the lawns.  Sofie ran up at first as if to greet him, but then stopped about 15 feet away.  She looked nervously at the dog, wagged her tail, and then layed down on her belly.  The dog just stood stark still and stared her down (definitely aggression).  Sofie turned and, keeping her belly close to the ground, ran away.  She does this with dogs on the street, too.  Some dogs she tries to greet, some she pays no attention to.  She always tries to greet puppies, though.  She loves puppies (only dogs she can be dominant over). 

No new puppy pictures yesterday - Liz must have forgotten to send them.  I feel fairly certain she'll send out more this week, though, so I'll post them when she does. 

Have a great day!