Laramie in Living Color

My friend Sallie asked me to post a photo of Laramie Jean.  This isn't the best photo we have of her, but it has the best stories connected to it.See the little mouse peeking out from under Laramie's hot pink sweater?  She picked out that mouse her veryownself at the pet food store.  We were passing a set of shelves when she suddenly lept forward and tried to climb the shelves.  An employee was replenishing stock, and Laramie, I'm guessing, took the sound and the shape to mean CHIPMUNK!  Of course I bought it, even though it's a mouse and also not real. 

Koko is not so much fond of Laramie's mouse as he is fond of playing with a toy he knows to be hers.  (She repays the favor with his disgusting, much slobbered upon Best Baby, a much larger chipmunk.)  Therefore, it's not uncommon when I get up in the morning to find her toy nowhere near where she left it the night before.

What is uncommon in this picture is that I'd left the pink sweater on the arm of the couch the night before. Laramie sleeps on our bed and can't get down unaided, so only Koko could have retrieved the sweater and used it as a blanket for the mouse.

Just another reason to have two dogs:  the surprises never end.  Koko, being a dog, doesn't grasp the idea of covering up toys as they sleep -- and yet this is a picture of intentionality, in the same way he lines up his toys at the entrance to the living room to announce that it's time to play.