Tails of Popeye 3

He was a solemn and serious dog - he walked solemnly, he ran seriously. He ate and drank his food and water in a sedate somber manner. He greeted visitors in a dignified manner and generally disdained to notice other dogs in the neighborhood.

When we played ball with Amber, he would look on with an expression of: "Is that foolery really necessary?" When the gas delivery man came to replace the gas tank, he would sit to the side and just look at him. But because of his breed and size, he struck fear into their hearts. But he neither barked at or surged forward at them; he just sat to the side and looked at whichever delivery men or repairmen that came to the house.

A serious moment of shared reflection

"A dog's bark is worse than his bite" but in the case of Popeye: his silence was worse than his bark. Because his silence did not make him look docile.

I've already told of how he sat in the car - solemn and serious, no hanging out of the window and goggling in the wind. When Larry took him for his walk, he padded along beside Larry like a lion on parade, regal, staid, no straining on the leash like a wild beast.

He seldom liked to act ridiculous and that established him as an object of ridicule with us. (Say sorry)

As when we took the leash off the hook, Amber would whip herself into ecstasies of delight by eeling herself around and between our legs, lashing us, sometimes quite painfully, with her powerfully wagging tail. He had no tail to show his delight, neither could he wiggle between our legs due to his height and his width.

So instead he did what we call, the lion dance.

First, his four legs would march in place to a sedate rhythm only he could hear. It was already quite funny to see this normally solemn and serious dog do a slow two-step, or in his case, four-step. But when we advance on him to hook the leash on his collar, he would up the tempo of his steps and toss his head up down, left right - very much like the lion dance performance.

Those were our sampan days when we didn't own a video camera and the phones at that time did not have video recording features so I don't have it on film but replaying it on the reels of my memory still brings a laugh out of me (and Larry and Kevin too, I believe).

A stillshot just doesn't do justice