"House for sale, never been used."

The photo below, with Lindy casting a dog-shaped shadow down into the coulee, is my favorite for Shadow Shot Sunday.

Today's blog post doesn't have anything to do with travel, but it does have a lot to do with being willing to go to any lengths...

If there's any one thing I love, it's dogs. Of course, if there are any two things I love, those would be dogs and cats. People fit in there somewhere, sure, but the ranking depends upon the day, the person, my health and my mood.

Right now, I'm alone in the house except for our darling dog, Lindy, whom we called Lindimus Maximus when we first adopted her from SOS Pet Rescue, because she had been living wild and eating all the wrong things (i.e. anything she could find) and was even fatter than she is now. So, of course, what I love most of all at the moment is dogs, and specifically our dog.

We've had Lindy for almost a year (September 16) and she becomes more precious to us every day. Today I'm particularly fond of her because she hasn't bothered me to chop up any vegetables for her since 9am. Is she improving in the begging department? Probably not. It's hot, and she's tired, and she misses her daddy, who won't be home for an hour or two.

Last year, when one of Dick's daughters and her family bought a house an easy distance from us, she told her father I could have a dog because she'd be able to dog-sit when we travel. But it didn't work out that way.

We immediately looked at the SOS website and found just what I wanted: an adult female golden retriever. Dick, his daughter, her 3-year-old daughter, and I, all went to see the dog that very day. She was happy enough to see us girls, but she took one look at Dick and she was smitten.

My theory is she belonged to an old man (okay, a distinguished-looking white-haired gentleman) who died, and his heirs abandoned this beautiful dog. It certainly couldn't be that she doesn't like me, now, could it? Harrumph.

No one knows how long she was homeless, poor sweetie, but it was long enough for her to make some extraordinary decisions, one being that facial tissues are good enough to eat. Not a good idea.

We also think she was probably raised to enjoy snacking on vegetables, but she may also have been raiding gardens (as well as garbage) when she was homeless. Nevertheless, we didn't know this about her until we brought in some bags of groceries, mistakenly put them on the floor thinking she wouldn't touch them because they didn't contain meat or dog treats, and went back to the car for more. In the short time it took us to walk 20 feet (7m in Canadian) and back, she had devoured half a large yam. Yes, raw yam, not even sweet-potato fries!

And I can never forget the day Dick phoned me and said, "Help! We're in the field behind Sam's house and Lindy has her head stuck in a hole. I'm afraid she can't breathe." I've had more dog experience than he has, but I'm no bigger and certainly no stronger, so I didn't know what he expected me to do.

Nevertheless, I went. It wasn't far.

It seems she also thought gopher-hunting was a good way to go, and Dick was right, she was 'way down that gopher hole. Turned out all he wanted me to do was hold her leash while he got both arms around her and popped her out with (fortunately) no gopher attached. And I don't even want to talk about the day she found a gopher carcass and... well, he got it away from her, and she didn't get sick, so all's well, etc.

In one of these photos, she is digging a hole outside someone else's fence while walking with Dick. There wasn't a gopher hole there to begin with, but there was certainly a dog hole by the time she finished, and this happened many months after Digger Dog got used to being pampered and petted in our house.

Oh yes, in our house. Shortly after we brought her home, I heard about a local man who made lovely insulated dog houses, so of course we went to look, and there was a Lindy-sized one, all finished with a heavy rubber door flap, just waiting for us. So I paid for it, the man delivered it, and Lindy refused to go into it.

"A dog house? I thought you brought me here to live in your house. In fact, I now regard your house as my house and not as yours any more at all."

Sigh. If we throw treats into the dog house, she'll go inside far enough to reach them, always being careful to leave at least one hind paw outside; then she'll eat the treats and back out of there, looking to us for more.

But what can I say? Love is blind, you know, and we love Lindy Davies-Schear all to little bitty bits. And if we ever have the garage sale Dick always insists we're going to have, it will be a dog house sale as well.

See other beautiful animals, people, and objects cast their shadows at Shadow Shot Sunday.