Gusto makes me laugh and shake my head nearly daily. He is such a weird, quirky, non-dog creature.
Today I took the dogs for a walk by one of the schools. Nice cross country running trails through the woods, giant soccer fields, and Little League fields. As we came out of the woods onto the baseball fields, I saw people playing fetch with a dog in one of the fields. Clearly taking advantage of the mostly fenced space. I've actually run into the same dog before without a fence between us, and I know it is fairly sketchy with dogs. So, as it starts charging the fence, I leaned over to tap Meg's head, because I'm sure if I let her fixate, she would have had a blast fence-fighting.
And Gusto instantly chose to leap onto my back. He's used the same move many times, when he's either worried about a dog coming at us, or getting overwhelmed by a dog he's playing with and needs a break, or when the snow is super deep and he's sick of walking. And every time, I laugh. He figured it out on his own. I can not, for the life of me, teach him to jump up on cue. But as soon as he decides he wants a safe spot, he bounds up in one leap, sticks his back feet in my waistband, and his feet over my shoulders like a weird little monkey child getting a piggy back ride.
The picture is actually from last winter, when he was trying to see over the snowbanks to watch people sledding. Because he also knows that this is a good vantage point for seeing great distances.
He is just so weird and I love him.
