Otterpop and Laura go to Kentucky-Training like a champ.

Gary likes to pick up Otterpop on to his lap, and say to her, "You're going on an airplane with Laura to Kentucky." And he starts to snicker, and then I start to laugh, and then Otterpop starts to bark, and then both of us are totally cracking up. We're all sitting smashed on our little couch, good thing we have small dogs, all in a pile smashed together on top of us.

We like to say this a lot. I think we're easily amused at my house.

I don't think it would be quite so funny if it was one of the other dogs, and if it was someplace like Fresno or Philadelphia or Reno.

Actually, once I drove with Timmy in a snow storm to Reno, to stay at the Nugget Casino and see what ended up being Johnny Cash's last show ever, before he died. I snuck Timmy in, stuffed in a big black duffel bag. I had to keep reminding him NO WAY could he bark. Come to think of it, this was pretty funny.

I let Otterpop run at Dirt Nite last night. She picked last night to demonstrate her new high speed dogwalk with a sporty gazelle like leap off the end. WHERE did she come up with that? A little meatloaf shaped bullet, sort of lumpy, launching herself up and over that yellow contact zone.

This happens on occasion, but rarely 3 times in a row. Geez. It was fixed by that magical training aid, frisbee, which I just tossed in the dirt a couple feet off the end. Does the trick every time, just by laying there, and actually works to patch up Gustavo's somewhat shaky running dogwalk contact as well. Thank you, frisbee.

This was disconcerting. Not at all funny at the time. Disturbing. Here's how I patched it on the Mental Management end of things.

"Hey, Otterpop. Me and you are flying on an aeroplane to Kentucky next week. Just you and me."

You can't see it, but I just snorted out my nose while I was typing that. If I read it back out loud, I can't hold the corners of my mouth from wrenching up into a smile. They just go. If I'm really lucky, I might fall off my chair.