Way Back Wednesday

Is it Wednesday again,already??
(I've got two more blog posts that I'm going to be putting up today and/or tomorrow in case you're wondering what we've been doing here, besides living in the Way Back...)

So, this week I'd like to introduce you to one of our family dogs. This is Caesar:

This is one of the rare pictures in my possession that has identifying information on it. It's dated 1974, and says that Caesar is 2 years old.

This is also our backyard, where Caesar happily spent his days. My mom would get up at 6:30 or so every morning and put Caesar (who eventually became Roo -- as in Caesaroo -- to some of us) out on his chain. He'd run around all day, watching birds and squirrels and us and then he'd come in sometime in the afternoon. I never saw him inside the dog house, but he did like to sit under its awning when it was sunny and hot. Caesar was a German shepherd/black lab mix. He was beefier than your standard lab, but he still pretty much looked exactly like a black lab.

He was also pretty smart. You could put a piece of cheese on the tip of his nose and he'd try to flip it up and eat it (usually it just dropped on the floor -- Caesar was smart, but not too talented). Also, every night when my dad got off the couch to go to bed, Caesar would trot himself off the bed in the back hall where he'd stay all night until Mom got up to put him outside. To my memory he never chewed on anything, rarely barked (except if the doorbell rang) and didn't do things like jump up to eat the dinner leftovers or bite children who would try to ride him.

He also had this adorable (but gross) habit of only drinking water from his bowl, if his foot was also in the water. Oh,and when we were naming him, I tried to get everyone to call him Satan, but no one went for it.

Caesar died of cancer and while I'm not sure of the year, I think it was when I was still in college -- probably 1978 or 1979, but others reading this might remember the year better.