Snow in the Syracuse backyard? Ellie B digs it

As I’ve written about the snow piling up around our Little Bitty the past few days here in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood, somebody asked me in a comment about the reaction of Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle. Well, Diana, I do believe you will be able to see for yourself. Not one of…

Ellie B earns the dreaded double leash

My around-the-block with Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle turned into an unwanted adventure last week. The dog slipped her gentle leader. Oh, my wily beloved rescue mutt has managed to free her nose from the black circle of mesh before, but as we walked down the hill on our street, four houses from home in…

Ellie B got the skunk shot right between the eyes

I relaxed for a moment too long after dusk fell last night, typing on the recliner my weekly film news blog that will be posted a bit later this morning on syracusenewtimes.com as my dear wife Karen relaxed with a bit of TV. Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle came inside from out back at a…

Keep the walk to the street, please

I was working on my film blog as the sun fell Wednesday night, and Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle starting bouncing around the living room with her mean bark on. Up she leapt on my recliner, practically knocking me off my half as she woofed out the front window. Off she bounced to the couch…

Operation Skunk Be Gone, so far, so …

I do not want to jinx it. The halogen light has been shining from the back porch for seven nights, flooding the area between the butterfly garden and the backyard shed, the space where our Syracuse city skunk shot its spray into Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle at dusk eight days ago. Saturday and Sunday,…

The skunk makes us miss the days of the gopher

My dear wife Karen let out Ellie B in the backyard for a few minutes just when the sun was setting Monday night. I heard the bark, the frantic one, the I’ve-got-an-animal-bothering-me pitch. I heard Karen calling my name with an equal amount of panic. I smelled the hint of trouble as I saw my…

Welcome to Woofstock, a day of peaceful barking, loving face-licking and musical tail-wagging

Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle survived the Woofstock Festival Saturday afternoon. She mingled with mutts, listened to music, let two women wearing veterinarian scrubs scratch her head, ate only half a cup of ice cream and never had to roll through a mud puddle. The dog days of late July were pretty good in this…

Gopher gone, we have a lovesick dog

As we settle into the second day full day of the separation of Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle and the backyard gopher, the sniffing and scratching continues. And my beloved 3 1/2-year-old rescue mutt looks up at me with puppy dog eyes again and seems to say: Where did my furry friend go? On Saturday,…

Gopher’s forecast: Six more weeks of a nervous Dogamous Pyle, unless …

One of the more pleasant by-products of our week not in Syracuse, my dear wife Karen and I pretty quickly decided as we lounged around the cottage in Cape Cod, was the more relaxed state of Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle. Our beloved rescue mutt had dismissed the thought of our backyard gopher. And so…

An ocean of excitement

Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle, meet the Atlantic Ocean. Our rescue mutt was introduced to really wavy water for the first time in the fourth year of her life, when we woke up on our fifth morning not in Syracuse and decided to drive to Provincetown. Our smart dog liked the ocean more than she…