Tag, I'm It

In the comments for a recent post, I was tagged by Disgruntled Owl and again by 3DogCache to list six weird things about Pappy and/or me. Is this a trick question? This blog is essentially a celebration of everything weird about Pappy. We've got an embarrassment of riches to draw upon. Of course I am of no relevance-- just a poor scribe.

Maybe I should be trying to make this a challenge, and list six normal things about Pappy. Well, I'll stick with the instructions. Here are six weird things I haven't seen other dogs doing:

1. When chasing a ball, if it ricochets off a tree or other object he has to go back and investigate. He'll go look the tree up and down, even if it means backtracking across the yard. It could well be that he is the Isaac Newton of the dog set, working out the physics of ball trajectories.
2. When Pappy has his ball and you aren't playing with him, he'll immediately take it to the nearest low-hanging obstacle-- a bureau, a chain-link fence with a gap under it, a bookshelf, a sofa, the TV stand-- and start a high-stakes game of pawing and poking the ball. Within seconds he'll have knocked the ball under the obstacle, whereupon he begins scrabbling around underneath with his paws. Often he can get the ball out himself, but he'll continue poking it under until he can't. Finally he'll begin a little dance of looking at the ball, then looking back at us and whining...driving...me...nuts...until I totally cave in and get the ball for him.
3. When you're petting him, Pappy always tries to gnaw on your rings. My wife worries he'll eat the diamond from her engagement ring, and I don't look forward to the "outcome" of that eventuality.
4. For some reason he always gets playful when I am putting on my shoes-- grabbing at socks, getting under my legs, etc. It's not that he isn't playful at other times, but he's always riled up with the shoes. I think he gets high on foot odor.
5. When anticipating a walk I've seen dogs go nuts, or I've seen them enthusiastically sitting waiting for the leash. For some reason Pappy nervously paces in slow circles around me making it difficult to get the leash on. I have no explanation for this one, because he clearly likes walks and never goes off-leash.
6. Pappy's bed is at the bottom of our bed. I have a little eighteen inch gap between bed and bureau to squeeze through to get to my side of our bed. For some reason Pappy always flops off his bed and sprawls his head and front legs across my gap when he goes to sleep. I'll stomp back and forth over his head while getting ready for bed, and he never flinches. After I turn out the lights I shuffle, night-blind and worried about crushing his skull, to bed. Later, he curls up on his bed out of the way. Ha ha ha, funny game.

Now for the hard part-- who do I want to victimize next? I remember my first chain letters as a kid, and they gave me a bit of a complex. They either promised a horrible and painful death if I didn't continue the chain, or asked me to send a dollar I didn't have to the people who victimized me in the first place. When I got older I made a methodical practice of breaking any chain letters, but always with some hesitation.

Let's see who looks like they haven't been tagged recently (man, there was a huge outbreak of tagging back in August). OK, I'll tag the following:

The Dogs of Jackman Avenue

Finnegan

Marvin, the Hollow Hound

[The rules...Each player of this game starts with the "6 Weird Things about You"-- or your dogs. People who get tagged need to write a blog of their own 6 weird things as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose people to be tagged and list their names. Don't forget to leave a comment that says 'you are tagged' in their blog.]