Maxie the Dog Poses with Hammock Human

For more than a decade, Readlarrypowell.com has been soliciting photos of slumbering critters -- and we’ve always encouraged people to send in photos of their napping deadbeat in-laws or cute relatives for spotlighting in our weekend feature Let Sleeping Dogs Lie & Napping Cats Nap.
We finally have one. 
Thank you, Maxie the Dog of Indian Lake, a waterfront community at Denville. That is in New Jersey, the Garden State.
Maxie rooms (and yards) with Andy Fisher and Annie, the woman who changed both their lives for the better at the right moment in time. 
Apparently Maxie caught Andy in the hammock, then set his cellphone camera on a timer and hustled off the deck to get into the photo.

Why is this important to know? Because for the past month or so Maxie has been recuperating from serious back surgery. He was absolutely immobile one morning and Andy and Annie got their boy right into top-notch veterinary care. They’ve been nursing him along ever since the surgery -- such things as helping him walk in a “hip sling” while  he rebuilds his strength.
You can see by Maxie’s latest frontal photo that he is a handsome big boy. Got a great smile and a big heart.

 You see a photo of Maxie standing and another of him in a position of total relaxation on the deck -- those were shot in May of 2015 when Maxie came to his new home.

Where had he been? He’d been in the care of the famous Eleventh Hour Rescue at Denville -- the group’s slogan on the logo reads “Their only crime is they are out of time.”

Maxie was just about out of time when things worked out for the Fisher lakeside abode. 

See that photo of Maxie with his humans? Here’s the story on that from Andy, the Eastern Seaboard Bureau Chief for Readlarrypowell.com.  Andy has experience in journalism, having worked in print, radio and TV. 

His report on the photo is that it was taken by “Kenny and Debby, our neighbors who volunteer at Eleventh Hour Animal Rescue, just stopped by in their kayaks to check on Maxie's progress. Maxie scrambled right up to the sea wall to say hello; he and Kenny were buddies long before he came to live with us.”
Annie, of course, gently guided Andy into the world of animals. He is one proud dog guy. 
[LARRY ASIDE: That scene of Maxie scrambling to greet Kenny is pretty sweet, isn’t it! You folks who are wondering if there are rewards to fostering animals or volunteering at shelters, there’s your answer. Dogs have wonderful memories and appreciate the people who helped them.]

We have one more report regarding the hammock photo. Those are Andy’s knees. They are the knees of a newshound. It is hard to get a tan in a newsroom.
The other thing is, Andy offers some baseball comfort philosophy.
First, he says, “The T-shirt I am wearing in the hammock photo is from the "archive" collection of the Baseball Hall of Fame and honors my all-time favorite American League team*, the St. Louis Browns, the only team ever to put a little person [Eddie Gaedel, 3 feet, 7 inches tall] in the lineup, the only one with a one-armed outfielder [Pete Gray in 1945], and the team of the legendary George Sisler [one of baseball’s greatest hitters who played for both the Browns and Andy’s other favorite team].
Andy explains, “My favorite National League team is the Boston Braves. Rooting for teams that don’t exist any more avoids the annoying ups and downs of random success and failure.”
When I read that, the Texas Rangers were plummeting, though still in first place. But they’d dropped from 10 games ahead to about 3 in a brief time because the team that had made it to 10 games out front apparently did not exist any more. We’re still hoping Skipper Jeff Bannister can make the winning team reappear and stick around through the World Series. 
And, it appears that, right now, the St. Louis Browns and the Boston Braves have a better shot at winning a division than any major league time in the Greater Indian Lake/New York City area.
[Send photos of your slumbering critters or hammock nappers to [email protected] for spotlighting in our long-running weekend feature, Let Sleeping Dogs Lie & Napping Cats Nap. Remember, we use these pictures to inspire insomniacs, yes, to demonstrate that they, too, can find a way to sleep if they’ll just get the right hammock, bed, carpet, dog, cat or cuddler. Sleep is like dog hair under a bed -- it’s there if you just look for it.]
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