Woofer twofer.

The lovely Mrs. Key was not feeling her best yesterday morning, and I had to take the dogs out to do their usual dog things to my unsuspecting lawn. (Which shows you how dumb lawns are.) After which it was still early, a little after six on a Sunday morning and 59 degrees Fahrenheit, so I thought I would both of them for a walk.

If you have had multiple dogs, you're thinking "Oh that's nice YAWN" or "Are you CRAZY?" depending on the kind of dogs you've had. I think mine count for the latter. It's mostly an issue of size, their combined weight being about 200 pounds, and them being younger, faster, and together probably stronger than I am. It wouldn't be an issue if they were both calm, sedate adult dogs, but one of them still acts like a crazed puppy a good deal of the time, and the other one can usually be counted on to do something naughty if he knows Pops is distracted with the baby. So walking them together has the potential to be challenging.

In the past we've had some success trying this, but that was when the puppy, Nipper, was quite small and more easily manhandled. He also was less likely to fun-attack the older dog, Tralfaz. When the fun-attacks became virtually inevitable anytime they were outside at the same time, the idea of walking together was temporarily discarded.

Sunday was different. We started off a little hinky, the boys scooting back and forth in front and behind me, twisting up leashes, me switching hands as needed, turning and leading, wondering how those dog-walkers in the city who take 18 dogs out at once handle it. I felt like an idiot who couldn't control his dogs. But then, suddenly, they snapped into shape. Suddenly, I wanted to be seen by my neighbors.

It was beautiful, them trotting ahead of me side by side, enjoying the morning. It was surprising. It was wonderful. It was about twelve seconds.

It could have been worse. If one of them had decided to poop on a neighbor's lawn -- which I would be obliged by honor to clean up -- I would have to hold them both with one hand while wrangling poop and a poop bag with the other. I've done it before but it is nobody's idea of a good time.

Actually, it could have been a whole lot worse than it was. The boys were good, and there was no attack fun until we got back to our own property. We got a nice walk in and I think just two people saw us, one of them being the lady that delivers the newspapers.

And no one pooped. Not even me. Big, big props for that.