It is easy to just pretend Courtney Love is Laura.

In Marfa, you should have your dogs on a leash only if you are visiting the Marfa Prada. It is on a highway. It is some Art. Even though I believe it may not be on a busy highway, if any of your dogs tend to chase trucks, you might as well leash 'em up there. But everywhere else, I believe it's ok to just let 'em run.

This is what I look like most every morning when I walk around the block. Today it involved the Timmy shuffle backwards and forwards, Ruby sort of 3 legging it, Otterpop REALLY disgruntled about going slow, and Gustavo howling and flying at cats and squirrels. Because you know on a day like this, you will see EVERY cat and EVERY squirrel. And, just when you think it can't get a lot worse than that, a lady with a reactive dog walks up to us. Otterpop, who usually is not reactive to other dogs or leashes, starts to react to her already melting down dog. The lady stops. Right in front of us. Wearing a flowery sun hat with a string around her chin to wedge it tightly on her head. And says, "Oh, is one of your dogs like that TOO?"

I have this insane clown posse of a pack either shuffling, 3 legging it, howling and flinging, or growling and pulling. And hers is lunging towards my whole mess.

I sort of look at her, thinking, well, she is a smart lady no doubt. Just move along, smart lady from around the corner with your own dog problems to take care of. Kind of a no brainer. Bad dog lunging=move away smart lady with your ugly ass hat.

But no. She inches closer. I believe to chat about our dogs. I back up. This is just too much of a circus to have some kind of weird leashy dog fight start. Otterpop has a rockin' Leave It and she does that and comes in to her close position. The lady is staring at me, wanting to chat about bad dogs I guess. I just need to keep this rolling party of freaks moving. I have eye contact of love with Otterpop so she stares at me and not at the bad dog that is calling her out and throwing out some Them is Fighting Words.

Likely, Otterpop is bodyguarding Timmy, a new development we got with Timmy's descent into the decrepit. In a sweetly endearing, yet frightening and pack-like way, Otterpop protects Timmy against all evil these days. If I take Timmy somewhere, I take Otterpop. We had a couple of bad Timmy days this week, horrible panic attacks where something unknown scared the pants off of him and he was literally climbing the walls until I could jam tranquilizers down his gullet and corral him in a padded cell until he jonesed his way down. Otterpop stayed by his side the whole time, his calm in the storm, just me and her waiting it out with him when he didn't know us from the furniture he was bashing into.

Hat lady with the dog finally assumes I am a mute freak with my freak show of black dogs and makes her way down the street, away from me, tugging her own lunging bad dog along behind her.

John Travolta is NOT invited to be in this one.

Last night, we were watching the new version of Hairspray, with the big production numbers. And I was thinking, this is what dog agility needs. A super big production number musical about a rising dog agility star, who has to fight all the odds (bad outfits, ugly cars, Turlock, mean dogs, mean girls, her dog runs away, Susan Garrett, stuff like that) and then in the end, wins the Grand Prix and Steeplechase at the USDAA Nationals and is asked to join the World Team (leaving an opening for the sequel).

There would be giant, swirling, song and dance numbers with all the dogs and exhibitors in the most beautiful outfits, Santino would do all the costumes. Loads of singing with peppy songs like, Stop That Contact and Play With Your Dog. Not only would there be exciting choreography and giant hats but also the best circus dog trainers would be brought in so the dogs would be jumping and leaping over things like a synchronized swimming match of circus dogs with overhead crane shots on a dog agility field. The dog equipment would of course be all stunning and glittery and art directed and the ending would be very, very happy. We may even let Courtney Love be in it.

If I spend all my time thinking about things like this, then that is one less space to worry about global warming and all the christmas shopping crap adding more onto global warming and the birds dying and the rainforests. Hmm. Rainforest destruction or plan a storyboard sketch for the ending Steeplechase scene with the pink lame costumes and the course looks like a miniature golf course with a gothic skatepark theme? No contest.