Tank, Part II

As a baby, Meg was a spitter, a world-class, projectile spitter. Oh, my word, that girl could spit up. We grew to love the hiccups (I wanted to write "hiccoughs," the proper term, but Blogger does not like the spelling) because only that would signal that she was done spitting up. What does this have to do with Tank? Well, as gross as it sounds Tank was our Hoover. He would and could eat anything. Meg would spit up, and Tank would clean up the floor (thank goodness for laminate floors), the furniture, and Meg herself. Any time, day or night, that tongue of his would do its job. It made our lives much easier. And, yes, we employed his services during Jake and Finn's infancy as well.


Before we had chosen Tank, Brian and I had visited the Marymoor off-leash dogpark a couple of times; we wanted to be around dogs and figure out the breed that would work for us. Once we brought home Tank, we couldn't wait to take him. For his safety and the safety of the other dogs, we had to wait. By October, Tank was finally ready for his first trip; he was fixed and had all of his shots. We bundled up Meghan, loaded up Tank, and off we went. Tank LOVED the dogpark. He could run free and meet other dogs and people. Unfortunately, he wasn't trained yet and would jump on almost anybody. Almost. One of the sweetest qualities about Tanker was his attitude towards children. He would run up to them and beg to be petted, but he would never jump on them. He was always gentle, almost reverent, of the youngest child.


His favorite part, though, was the river and mud, especially the mud. After running and playing, he was tired and a bit hot so he found the deepest patch of mud and lowered his light golden body into the stinky, cool mud. Choruses of "no-o-o-o!" could be heard throughout the part. They continued when he though it would only be proper to roll in the mud and thoroughly cover himself. Only a dog.


The strange thing was that the mud only stuck to his fur momentarily. He has always had a knack for looking clean even after drenching himself in filth.


Tank didn't want to leave the park. The only way we could get him to the car was by playing a little game. Brian would go ahead of us to the side of the path back to the car, squat down and call Tank, while I would encourage him with "Go to Papa!" Then I would go ahead on the other side of the path and Brian would yell "Go to Mama!" We zig-zagged him all the way back to the parking lot. We originally tried staying on the path, but that didn't work. Too smart for that.

Tank is the little guy with his butt facing the camera.

When Meg was one month old, we decided to take her and Tank to Sunset, a Mount Rainier viewing point on the north side of the mountain, a three-hour drive. It was a glorious day in October, and I am slightly embarrassed to say that I only agreed because of Brian's prodding. He's much more adventurous than I am. My memory of the time has faded. I don't remember much more than it being a lovely day. We hiked and played and took pictures.

I mentioned before that Tank could blend into our flooring. Here's a sweet photo of him doing just that in our hallway on Halloween, 1999. He's about 4-1/2 months old.

Next, a cross-country trip ...