Van Frederick is used to it when he rides his BMW motorcycle through Old City Philadelphia. Tourists gawk. Drivers whip out their camera-equipped cell phones. Sometimes, traffic stops altogether.
Frederick's copilot - riding in a sidecar customized to resemble an oversized baseball - is paying no mind.
Bobaji, a 9-year-old black Lab, is positively beatific as he grins behind his fire-engine-red "doggles."
"The paw-parazzi can shoot all they want," Frederick said as he pulled up to Cafe Ole on North Third Street. "I just wish they wouldn't take their pictures when they're moving at 75 m.p.h. on the highway."
Frederick, 48, prefers to be called "Rick." Bobaji prefers "Bo."
For the last three months, the inseparable pair have become an attraction in their own right as they linger at cafes in Old City and South Jersey. Cafe Ole is a favorite, as is the Starbucks in Haddonfield.
They're hard to miss.
The sidecar itself is a work of art. It's mounted with two video cameras, four baseballs, and two baseball bats, not to mention a leather ball glove and several banners.
But it's Bo who's the star of the show. He's the sidekick in the sidecar, towering above all the bric-a-brac, his tongue and ears flapping in the breeze.
"People often ask me if he's a chick magnet," Frederick said, as a dozens of sightseers drifted up Third Street on a Ride the Ducks vehicle. "But he's the one who gets all the attention . . . and he's got no testicles!"
Frederick and Bobaji are planning a cross-country road trip later this summer. They'll ride to Seattle on the motorcycle to draw attention to animal shelters and persuade pet owners to have their pets neutered and spayed.
Of course, they'll stop at major-league ballparks all along the way.
The project was born about a year ago when both Bobaji and Frederick nearly died. Bobaji was stricken by a rare blood disorder. Without Bobaji riding in the sidecar, Frederick misjudged a turn and came within a hair's breadth of plowing into a Mack truck in Florida.
"My dog is my ballast," Frederick said. "I momentarily forgot that fact. In addition to losing Bo, I almost lost my life. He keeps me alive and grounded."
Four months, several blood transfusions, and $5,000 in veterinarian bills later, Bobaji was as good as new.
"Those were horrible days," Frederick said. "But he's so much better now."
The trip, Frederick said, is a way of celebrating their devotion to one another. The journey is being documented on the Web site www.bobaji.com.
Master and dog haven't been a pair for long. They found each other three years ago when both were at the "bottom of our games," said Frederick, who spent 20 years in Seattle working as a German translator for Microsoft.
He had two passions: his motorcycle and his violin. Then a crash left him unable to ride the bike or play his fiddle. A few months later, his mother in New Jersey became gravely ill.
Frederick quit his job and sold his house. He bought a big RV and rolled what was left of his life back East.
He nursed his mother back to health. He bounced from one relative's house to another up and down the East Coast, house-sitting and doing odd jobs as he tried to figure out his next move.
"I was pretty much down and out," Frederick said.
His aunt, Nadine Gentile, was planning a trip to India. She needed someone to take care of her house and watch her dog on Maryland's Eastern Shore.
"It was love at first sight," Frederick said of the encounter that would change his life. "I looked at Bo. He looked at me. And in his eyes, I could see he was saying, 'I'm going with you!' "
When his aunt returned from India 10 weeks later, Bo and Frederick "were truly joined at the hip."
"I couldn't separate them," Gentile said. "It would have been cruel to both. I love that dog, too. But he gives him so much more."