The feast day of the patron saint of animals, St. Francis of Assisi, is today, October 4. Though several churches in our immediate area, and this year also one of our usual dog training schools as well, do a Pet Blessing ceremony every year, we’ve never taken any of our pets to one. I’ve often enjoyed seeing the news video clips or photos following the ceremonies, although I do wonder if it is absolutely necessary to sprinkle the cats with holy water (many of them don’t act very blessed about that). If that seems like a stupid observation, please remember that I wasn’t brought up Christian!

I know Rottweilers are not inherently evil, but after The Omen I cannot easily picture my crew standing inside any of the churches in our neighborhood. Plus it would set back the cause of anti-breed specific legislation a good dozen years when the holy water hits them and the smoke starts rising off their fur. Okay, just kidding. I think. Anyway, it is we humans that are truly blessed by sharing our lives with our dogs, cats and other animal and avian companions.

Random observations to round out the day:

• We went to see the property that Dan’s sister Linda and her husband Casey are in the process of purchasing. The house needs some work, but not an overwhelming amount; it’s basically in good shape. It’s on five acres of land. Five acres is a LOT of land, and looks like even more if you have lived in the city all of your life and are used to postage-stamp sized lots where you are thisClose to people you would often not even want on the same planet with you, let alone thisClose to you.
• If you are planning to buy a Suncast 7.5′ x 5.5′ Garden Shed, it will not fit in your Dodge Grand Caravan unless you have a roof rack for a couple of the panels. Even if you take it out of the really giant packing boxes. Just saying.
• Linda will be at the Border Collie National Specialty this coming week; made me start thinking and you know, I have never been to my own breed’s national specialty? And I’m not even sure when the last time our specialty was in the Midwest. I have been to Medallion Rottweiler Club’s specialty (the one most local to us) many times and I will be there this year, but mostly just to drop off Axel for his hopeful championship road trip. I actually have until Wednesday morning to decide if I’m going to do one or more of the specialty’s rally trials with Freya, but right now I think we’re going to pass. She’s not really at her best at Rottweiler-only events, plus we’ve been concentrating on UKC rules rather than AKC rules.

(NaBloPoMo | October ’09: 4 of 31 | 75% Challenge: 226 of 274)