It used to be an entire dog made of rusted metal — a whimsical sculpture made of scraps and springs — which I bought for $10 at a yard sale. It’s barrel-body had been collecting rain, leaving it partly filled with rusty water, which leaked in the back of the car on our way home.

We put our rusty dog on the lawn, hoping it would startle hungry deer, deterring them from eating everything, as they usually do. Neighbors and passersby would pause and ask, “Is it a mouse? An elephant?” And the most common reaction to our reply, “No, it’s a dog!” was, “Really? I’m not seeing it!” We called it the “dog-mouse-elephant” after a while.

Over time, standing guard in the front yard, our “dog” continued to rust, crust, and crumble. One morning, we woke to find it had fallen sideways in the grass overnight, its right-front leg rotted through irreparably. Sadly, we took its rusted, crusted, body, limbs, and tail to the recycling center in a bin. In a moment of whimsy, after returning from the “dump”, we put the dog’s head on a corner post of a picket fence, where it remains to this day…

Photo of our “dog” in the snow (previous post) when it was still in one piece:

Camera: iPhone 11pro
Editing: Hipstamatic app
Photographer: Russ Murray aka “remages”
Location: Somewhere in Stamford, CT

See you tomorrow… 

// russ murray