Battleground

It's funny to watch owners at the dog park regarding the wading pool. There are the owners like me who are resigned that their active dogs need a cooldown to keep going in the heat. Then there are the poor schmucks with their beautifully groomed or thick coated dogs who are dying to dump the water out of the pool to keep from having to deal with ruined car seat covers and pets that end up looking like... well... Pappy. Rather than incur the approbation of the rest of us, they spend their whole visit to the dog park policing the pool and yelling at their dogs to get away.

And the wading pool is disgusting. Inevitably some owner starts his visit by dumping out all the muddy water and refilling it with fresh clean water. That lasts for about five minutes. Making the water all the more disgusting are dogs like Jack. On Sunday, Jack started his visit by racing over to the wading pool and arcing a stream of pee into it so that he can pwn all dogs who follow. Somebody refilled the pool, and a few minutes later Jack ambled by, lapped a sip of water out of it, and then re-peeded his previous effort-- I caught a shot of him as he was revving up to the big event. I don't mind. Pappy is pretty filthy all the time, and my philosophy is that he deposits more dirt than he takes with him.