The social life of a ditch dog

We went to our first Colorado party last night since returning west. Thrown at a cabin on a lake, it had all may favorite ingredients, music, mountains, Mexican food and margaritas. The party was something of a who's who of town politics. Everyone there either worked for the newspaper at some point or for one of several towns in the area. It was also a who's who of Sawyer's preschool, which I didn't expect. Five families from the preschool were there, not all brought their kids, but enough did that the party was overrun by little boys.

Arden, typically, was the only girl at the party. Which turned into an interesting conversation. I mentioned that Arden is almost always the only girl in social situations. She's the only girl among the Armstrong side of the family. She's the only girl with her babysitter. She's the only girl when we hang out with several of our good friends back east (like the Tovskys or Emerys). And this other mom I was talking to said it's like that for her daughter too (who had a babysitter unlike mine). In fact, she said it's like that at the public school preschool. In the younger preschool classes (2-4 year old), boys outnumber girls by 2-to-1. Yet, in the older classes (5-7 year olds) the opposite is true. Seems to go in waves.

Like any good Colorado party, this was a dog party. In Colorado, people bring their dogs almost everywhere they go, and dogs are almost always welcome to the party. At one point I counted six large dogs — a german wirehaired pointer, a white german shepard, a labradoodle, a chocolate lab, a boxer mix and Duncan — and one a little white Scottie, plus seven preschool children and three tiny babies at the party.

How could we not have adopted this pound dog?

Duncan, who isn't as well socialized as other dogs I've owned after all those years of isolated living in the Northern Neck, has been getting a schooling in proper dog behavior since we moved here. He's a little standoffish with most dogs he meets still, hackles up and all, but he's getting better. I was so proud of him though — he made friends with all the new dogs right away (he knows when he's outnumbered) and he ran around with them until the seven-dog situation became so overwhelming that he found a nice place on the couch and curled up for the rest of the party. I have to say he was the best-behaved dog there.