Today is the first warm day of the year, and the playground was absolutely mobbed. About thirty children were peeking at Odin through the bars. When Odin thinks he clearly should be getting pets and yet he isn’t, he likes to throw himself on the ground and roll adorably to win them over.

We also ran into the therapist for nonverbal autistic children, who takes them on walks with her own dog. She always encourages them to pet Odin, because he’s the exact right level of “looks scary but actually perfectly safe” to gently challenge them to engage.

(Today, it was a new child, and they chose not to. Maybe next time!)

@0xabad1dea Just imaging a kid coming home and causing confusion in their parents

"Mummy! I pet a bear!"

(clearly not the non-verbal ones but you get my point)

@emily_s there is a young adult with severe learning disabilities who we often run into at the park (being treated to a day out by care volunteers) and I don’t think he’s entirely sure what species Odin is, but he sure does like Odin.
@0xabad1dea @emily_s odin is one-of-a-kind, obviously

@0xabad1dea @emily_s

To be fair, this is basically my reaction to Odin too.

@0xabad1dea I’m so happy for you and Odin doing your public service work
@0xabad1dea I had lunch with @jmeowmeow the other day, and we met a big fluffy white dog named Stanley who we decided was Odin's photo negative
@0xabad1dea 5.2 Richter earthquake recorded in the Odin region