James Discovered Hot Air Balloons

and his life has never been the same.

This is our sweet pup, James. He’s the best boii, and is known to be the softest dog in Colorado, probably the US, and possibly the entire world. He’s some kind of pitbull/chocolate lab mix with a cookies and cream chest, but when people ask what kind of breed he is, we just say he’s a Colorado Snoozehound¹.

On a cool and cloudless morning last month, I let James out into our yard and he almost immediately started banging on the sliding glass door to be let back in. This usually only happens when he senses that someone exciting might be headed to our front door and he has an insatiable desire to greet them, but there was nobody at the door that morning.

I slid the door open so James could come inside, but he refused to cross the threshold of the door jamb. Instead, he whined a bit, spun around, and bolted off the porch only to turn around immediately and come back to where I was standing. I asked him, “What?” as if he understands English and would somehow respond to me. He whined again, turned around, and started down the same path. This time, though, he glanced back to make sure I was following him. That’s when it dawned on me that he was trying to show me something:

With an incredulous look on his face (he’s got incredibly expressive eyebrows), he kept glancing at the sky, then back at me, then back to the sky, and back to me.

I’m not sure how this dog made it more than six years without spotting hot air balloons, but it likely has something to do with the fact that his enormous blockhead is home to a walnut-sized brain. They launch these balloons a couple of miles from our home, almost daily for several months every year. James spends most of his time in our yard, lying around being a lazy beast, so I guess I assumed he had noticed and subsequently ignored them.

Once James determined that I had engaged sufficiently, he settled down to watch the balloon and I slipped back inside to read my book. He sat like this for over an hour:

He might not be the brightest crayon in the box or the sharpest tool in the shed, but he is my favorite dog in our cozy home.

1. You’d probably be shocked to learn how many people just nod their heads and comment on how great of a breed that is, entirely clueless that I made it up.