This Dog

This is our dog .

Her name is Thunder. Which she is terrified of.

She's strong, fast, and has a shit your pants scary deep bark that has made grown men jump back in fear while squeaking like a girl. Which is a damn funny thing to witness.

For some odd reason, we have never taken this dog to the beach, even though we only live about 25 minutes away. Alright, it's really because we're lazy and the beach is 25 minutes away and not like, across the street.

Last weekend, Giggles and I thought it was be tons of fun for all of us to run in the sand and avoid the very cold NJ water. We asked Thunder if she wanted to go for a ride. One thing this dog loves is being in the car. Her obsession with being in the car almost requires medication. She will, at every opportunity, jump into what ever car has doors, or windows, that are open. Or ones that she thinks are open. A few weeks ago we took her on some errands and she was out of the car for a short time just after sunset. When she wanted to get back in the car, she tried to jump through the window. Except it was closed. She smashed snout first right into the window, falling back with a solid Whoof. Hopefully, we've learned a lesson here. Given her drooling desire to be in the car, getting her to leave one can sometimes involve lots of swearing and threatening.

So we drove to the beach and when I was certain the coast was clear of any other person that she would jump on, or dog that she would try to eat, I let her off the leash. She was so excited to hit the sand her whole body was flailing back and forth from the force of her wagging and attempts to smell EVERYTHING, all at once.

Unrestrained excitement was in every movement as she took in this new place, with the new scents. It was hysterical. She kept bounding back to me and Giggles as if to exclaim "Do you SMELL that? What is THAT? Oh, did you SMELL THAT? What's THIS?"

We wandered closer to the water's edge and a wave caught her front paws. Shock. Compete visceral shock was the only way to describe the look on the goofy dog face. She froze for a nanosecond and then literally jumped 4 feet sideways to escape the wave.

"What the HELL was THAT?"

You could see the total bafflement as she stared and then started barking viciously at the water. Deep guttural barks that shook her body from head to tail tip. If she hadn't been so scared, I think she would have tried to bite it.

I almost pissed my pants, right there. I couldn't keep the camera from shaking long enough to take a photo of this big black dog, practically shouting at the water for scaring her silly. It was hard enough not to fall down laughing. Because after she was done barking, she ran over to my legs and hid behind them so I was between her and the water.

It should be pointed out that this is the same dog that quakes in fear and tries to climb onto my head when the cell phone battery indicator beeps.

Big Scary Moron.