Suddie Does Dallas

Above: Sidewalk Detail at the Wagging Tail Dog Park in Dallas

Yep that’s right. Suddie Does Dallas. And why the heck shouldn’t I? I haven’t heard from that Toby in ages.

To be honest, I was a little nervous about going to Dallas. You see there was this big brouhaha at dad’s building there. Another dog loving resident, Helen, sent dad a message last month informing him that the building’s pet policy had changed and that D-O-G’s were no longer allowed in the passenger elevators. We would have to travel in the service elevator! Helen went on to explain that “the Developer, unfortunately for us, does not like dogs. Gabrielle thinks they are messy and got tangled up with a dog walker who was walking 4 dogs one afternoon. Apparently, the dogs jumped on him mussing his pants, and that is when his rant began, and the Pet Rule appeared shortly thereafter.” What a perv!

They tried to make us feel better about the whole thing by slapping a fresh coat of paint on the service elevator lobby complete with a dog-centric quote, “Dogs are Not Our Whole Life, but they Make Our Lives Whole” – ROGER CARAS. Am I being a bit sensitive or is there a little subtext there? A little salt with our vinegar?

Actually I prefer the following quote which appears on a painting at the Dallas Museum of Art.

When I Have You: Life, How Much I Love You.

I mean as long as I'm with my dad, and Angus and Roxie, life is good. Even riding in the service elevator

So, anyway, you may ask yourself, “What the heck is Suddie doing in Dallas in July?” And just what is a girl, wearing a fur coat, with two kids in tow supposed to do in a town where the temperature is 102 degrees in the shade? Well, you see, she improvises. We get up just before sunrise, when it’s a nice cool 80 degrees, and take our long walk of the day. Some days we go way up the Katy Trail. It’s a great walking, hiking, biking trail that goes for miles through Dallas and into Highland Park. Sometimes we take detours along Turtle Creek and sometimes we see strange birds that I imagine live in South America during the winter. Sometimes we see strange people.


One day we packed up and went to a really posh neighborhood called Highland Park and took our morning walk there. It’s all lovely homes and Turtle Creek continues to run through a park there. There are tennis courts and a swimming pool and there’s even a sculpture of a dog. When we were in Highland Park dad lost his sunglasses and we had to run back to all the spots where he had stopped to take pictures. Sure enough there they were in the grass below the dog sculpture. That’s what he gets for making Angus sidle up to that bronze dog instead of keeping track of his possessions.


One day we headed downtown and visited the Dallas Museum of Art, The Nasher Sculpture Garden, symphony hall and toured around the arts district. A nice security guard posed for a pic with us. He asked us how much it cost to have our hair done. Dad asked him if he liked the corn rows we were sporting that day. Dad immediately wondered if his comment could be peceived as racist. All this before 8 AM!

I think my favorite day was when we dropped Roxie and Angus off at the hairdressers at 7:30 AM and dad and I headed to the dog park at White Rock Lake. We played Frisbee for a few rounds, but it was already too hot and I was feeling really lazy. So dad put fresh water in the kiddie pool they had there and I padded around in that. Then dad bought us all some toys in a vending machine they had there, but two (a little teddy bear and a plush little dog) got stuck on their way down and dad shook and shook the machine like crazy without any positive effect.

When we returned home, dad pulled into the car wash bay in our building and I thought he was gonna wash those rubber floors mats like he sometimes does. Well he did, but he also washed me. It actually felt quite good and dad entertained himself by giving me a Pee Wee Herman hairdo when my hair was wet and full of shampoo. Then it was into our garage for a brushing and comb out and later he braded my hair. I think I looked a bit like an aging sex kitten, Bridget Bardot perhaps, when he was done. Really more like Linda Evans, I guess. I think I had what you might call a tosseled come-hither look that took hours to perfect.


During the day we mostly hang out at our place with a very short pee break around 5 or 6 PM when it gets hottest here. For once, Angus lifts his leg quickly and PULLS us back to the comfort of our A/C. I now know why siestas are so important in southern climes.

Oh yeah, on the way to dropping Angus and Roxie off at their hairdresser, we discovered a PRISTINE dog park called Wagging Tails. It was gorgeous and lush, but it was 103 degrees when we stopped by to check it out after picking up the kids with their FRESH ‘Dos. We plan to stop by early in the morning this week before Roxie and Angus return for a shampoo and comb out.