Girl's Best Friend

We've all seen those pictures of pets and people who look alike--the young woman with long, straight blonde hair paired with an afghan hound.  The older woman with short white curls and her miniature poodle.  The beefy guy and an equally beefy bulldog.

Well, Jodie and I look nothing alike. She is a short, stocky blonde with brown eyes, and I'm a tall, lanky brunette with blue eyes.

Here's my adorable girl with one of the UD mascots at a recent 5K, with me off to the left:

We may not look alike, but as far as internal clocks go, we're a match made in heaven.  

Jodie and I are morning people. 

We're both ready to go at 5:45 every day.  I love taking her for early-morning walks when the world is still quiet and we have the neighborhood pretty much to ourselves.

When we're at the cottage, Jodie and I go out to the beach as soon as we get up.  We've seen lots of sunrises, but last weekend, I realized just how dark it's gotten at 6:00 a.m. Our cottage is about 250 yards from the beach, and the street to get out to the beach is lit.

But the beach is dark.  Really dark.

I took a flashlight with me when we went out, so I could see where I was going...and make sure I didn't step on any horseshoe crab carcasses.

Jodie is off-leash when we're on the beach, but I always know where she is because her tags jingle as she trots from one great smell to another.

I probably wouldn't go out to the beach on my own at 6:00 a.m. in the dark, but Jodie is a great excuse to do it.  And it's fun having a companion on my early-morning adventures.

Jodie and I are pretty much alike at night too.  By 8:00, she's sacked out.

One Saturday night a couple of weeks ago, we had friends over for dinner, and we stayed outside enjoying a fire in our fire pit.  Jodie was on the deck with us, but at around 9:30 she got kind of agitated, going back and forth from one person to another with an anxious look on her face. I finally realized what she wanted. I opened the back door, and she did her Labrador happy dance and then made a mad dash for her crate in the extra bedroom.

We had kept her up past her bedtime.  I can relate to that.

Jodie is a great pal at the beach:

and at home after a hard day in the office:

I can't imagine life without this dog that someone else didn't want....