Dempsey vs Godzilla

We've mentioned how quickly Dempsey is growing, but we now have photographic proof: Just look at how he towers over the motel and truck! Dempsey is clearly ready to lick Godzilla, both literally and figuratively.



All this growth is making Dempsey a little clumsy. He sometimes doesn't realize where his tail or paws are one day to the next, and he bumps into things, or knocks things over.

At one small hardware store, we were turning a corner when Dempsey stepped on some thoughtfully placed rakes near the end cap. Predictably, this sent the handle of one of the rakes flying, cartoon-like, towards my face. In a rare instance of coordination, I was able to block the rake, though by doing so I knocked Dempsey off balance and onto another rake, whose handle also went flying, cartoon-like, towards my face. I wasn't as coordinated this time, but at least I can say that no animal other than myself was harmed in the production of this blog post.

Needless to say, we've been focusing a lot these last few weeks on coordination. For one thing, we've been going to a lot of small stores, practicing our loose leash walk through tight spaces. At home, we give Dempsey massages after every nap, and we've continued to practice "semper fido," his belly crawl. Sadly, Dempsey's belly crawl on the hardwood floor still looks more like "Call the lifeguard!" than "Call the Marines!" Dempsey says he'll get better if we give him more massages. We'll see.

P.S. You English lit majors may recognize "Gopher Prairie" as the thinly disguised hometown of Nobel laureate Sinclair Lewis in Main Street. We stopped by his boyhood home in Sauk Center, and then visited Little Falls, the childhood home of Charles Lindbergh and Boston's mom.

Given Dempsey's coordination issues, we didn't visit any museums; we want him as far away from fragile, irreplaceable historical artifacts as possible. Instead, we spent most of the trip driving by things and stopping at small country hardware stores, where Dempsey could train with the nuts.