Tami drawing her Day 6

Day 6, August 9, 2010. Operation Fido's Freedom:
When a cicada is the most interesting part of your day

I wonder if we should have a contest for most boring job. I'm pretty sure I'd win. Chained to a doghouse ten hours a day? Come on…it's a no brainer.

I was pretty sure early on that the most interesting part of today would be the cicada watching, and turned out I was right. That's when you know it's bad; real bad.

Juicy Rumors, where Tami gets her daily veggie juice, and has bathroom breaks

I was sitting on the steps trying to soak up the last few minutes of Joe's shade before he left, when our 14-year-old friend Morgan, from the Juicy Rumors store on the corner, told us to look out behind us.

Along came a bee, a big bee, heading straight for us and buzzing along the ground dragging a cicada that was even bigger than him. First of all, I didn't know there were any cicadas out this year, and second of all, we hightailed it off the steps and let this thing go about his business before he drug us along too.

Turns out that was probably a very smart move, given that he had a penchant for climbing up anything that got in his way. I could shudder at the thought of him crawling up my back, his little buzzers going and the skritch skritch of the dead cicada rubbing along the material of my shirt. Yuk.

Since it was only 9:30 a.m., I was chained to a doghouse in the immediate vicinity, and none of us had anything better to do, we all took to watching him to see how he would accomplish the particularly daunting mission he had taken upon himself.

He zoomed past us along the ground, and then started crawling up my "Support 1435" sign. When he made it to the top—about 3 feet high—he launched himself off, obviously of the mind that he just needed some distance and lift to carry his larger than life cargo through the air and get it to his unknown destination that much faster.

Didn't work out for him.

He made it only 3 feet before hitting the ground again, cicada still clutched in his determined little bee claws. Undeterred, he continued another 5 feet, whereupon he came across the green lamppost, and—you guessed it—began to ascend up the pole. We thought maybe he had a nest up there he was taking the 'food' to, but about half way up he lost the cicada, which, being dead, tumbled to the sidewalk. He buzzed about frantically, convinced he just needed to find it and all would be well again.

Morgan—being the kindly girl she is—threw the cicada into his path, at which point he latched on for dear life, deciding to take a new tack.

He jumped off the curb and unaware of the immediate danger to his person, started across traffic to the other side of the street. He somehow, like in frogger, managed to survive the grinding wheels of about five autos before reaching the other side, climbing up the mailbox, and launching himself into the air again.

Still didn't work out for him.

He dragged his cicada to the edge of the building wall, narrowly missed being crunched by numerous pairs of human shoes, and started up the side of the State Street Building. He did pretty well until he hit about 12 feet up, where the building jutting outward instead of inward.

It proved to be his undoing. He tried and tried to drag the cicada around the decorative edging but science and gravity were against him. He just couldn't do it. Frustrated (at least so my super-sensitive bee-psychic powers told me), he flew back down into the street he'd just come from, dropped his cicada, and aborted his mission.

Joe claimed he was going back to headquarters to tell them he didn't find anything.

I'd like to claim there to be some big, uplifting moral to this story. Like "If at first you don't succeed, fail and fail some more, until you fail so badly your bug gets smushed on the road and you finally beat a hasty retreat" but somehow that just doesn't sound very convincing, or uplifting.

I guess you'll have to discover this one for yourself.

The one thing I do know about this story is that what drove me to watch it unfold is happening day after day in backyards all across America, and most-definitely here in Pennsylvania. Dogs are so damn bored, hot, and miserable on the chain that they are chasing bugs and limited to being a spectator in their own life, never getting the chance to actually live one for themselves.

You and I have the chance now to make a difference for these dogs. Work on this law with me, call your Senator, and insist that he/she support SB1435. Chained dogs deserve better than to put 'bug-watcher' on their resume. They deserve instead to put 'family member,' 'ball-fetcher,' and 'car-rider-with-tongue-hanging-and-ears-flapping.'

Oh, yeah!

Miscellaneous postings from the day:

1. My mom always told me there'd be days like this. I don't think she did, but seemed like a good place to insert that phrase. I'm pretty sure she never told me there'd be days I was chained to a doghouse at the PA state Capitol. My poor mother!

2. I repeated Melody's Whitworth's experiment with the thermometer in the doghouse. This being wooden, it didn't get quite as hot as the plastic one she used, but it was still consistently 5 degrees higher than the outside temp. We reached a high of 97 degrees today, and the doghouse 102 degrees. I wonder who really thinks that a doghouse provides a dog with shade or some kind of cooling? You can download the flyer to post around from the volunteer page.

3. Thank Dog the concrete on the steps and sidewalk are a very light gray. Where the trim around the edges is a bit darker, there is a VERY noticeable difference in temperature.

4. The sky was virtually cloud-free all day. Not really good for me.

5. My pants were black and lined, which will be great on a cooler day, but today, they were absolutely unbearable. I was hoping I didn't lose it, rip them off, and go running down the street in my skivvies. Skivvies. I like that word.

I'm scrunched in the shade

6. There was just a small area of shade behind the sign and pylon, measuring about 1" by 2". I decided to go stand there to see if it was cooler. It was probably a good 10 to 20 degrees cooler! I told myself I would stand in the spot, but I wouldn't sit down in it, that was too undignified. But soon my feet hurt so bad from standing that I ended up scrunched at the bottom of the pylon into a little ball, trying to stay within the boundaries of the shade. I didn't even care what I looked like to passersby. It was a matter of survival at that point. I stayed there scrunched up until the shade from the building across the street hit me around 3:30.

7. Tomorrow's supposed to be hotter and more humid. I'm hoping I can endure it.

8. Thanks to my friends who've been so supportive, and my supporters who are turning into friends as you bring me water, gatorade, ice, give bathroom breaks. You rock.

I just like Joe's car...and love him!

Survival mechanism, staying in the tiny spot of shade.

Stacey Romberger stands in for bathroom break

Gordon really hates chaining of dogs

Claudia Luci stands in while I get get the car, end of Day 6!

Find your Senator and House Rep at: http://www.legis.state.pa.us/
Please contact them TODAY and tell them “I’m here for their law.”
Remember, they work FOR us. Insist that they support SB1435.

I will be actively blogging, facebooking, and tweeting daily from my chain.
To follow me, fan me, or read the nightly blog, check out the links below:

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Can you donate for this campaign which aims to save tens of thousands of dogs from life at the end of the chain? To donate by phone, call 814.941.7447.

Dogs Deserve Better is a 501c3 nonprofit organization.
To donate by mail, send check made out to Dogs Deserve Better,
P.O. Box 23, Tipton, PA 16684