Fluffy Red Collars

Mummy’s parents have come to visit from the land she came from to look at the big tree in our kennel.  This has seriously encroached on my writing time as doubling the human occupancy of our kennel has meant that I have had to help Talisker with his security detail.

There has been an unusual amount of white slippy stuff in the land Mummy came from.  Flying metal tubes there have not discovered how fun this stuff is and hide in their kennels and refuse to come out so it took Mummy’s parents more than a day to find a bold one that would bring them here.  Daddy had to come home from the land where humans used to wear round metal hats with horns.  He decided it was better to come through the land where chocolate comes from.  Chocolate loving flying metal tubes know all about white slippy stuff.

I have never worked this out, but when Mummy puts a tree in our kennel covered in bright sparkly things, she feels the need to decorate us too.  She insists on embarrassing us by taking us out dressed in red fluffy collars with bells on. I have tried hiding under the tree but Mummy always finds us.  This year she excelled in her determination to humiliate us.  Would you believe she found an old human who actually likes wearing this stuff and made us pose in front of the picture box with him?

Bowmore

Wild vs. Domesticated Trees

At this time of year, humans like to put a tree in their kennels and cover it with sparkly things.  There are two schools of thought on whether it is best to capture a wild tree or use a more docile domesticated tree and I have to admit that the wild ones do have pretty fur.

Gone are the days when our humans used to try to tame a wild tree every year.  Only very brave humans still do this.  It’s quite difficult to get them into the kennel.  The easy part is catching them.  After that, they have to be restrained with lots of string on the top of a motorized dog carrier to transport them.  You don’t want to put them inside as they aren’t house trained and make a real mess.  On arriving at the kennel, to remove the tree, bring it inside and put it in a tree restrainer, humans have to wear big paw covers made of cow skin because they tend to bite.

We have a domesticated tree in our kennel which is very well behaved.  It sleeps in a bag all year and comes out with very little fight.  Being house trained, it doesn’t leave any mess and then quietly climbs back in its bag when its job is done but I have to admit that I still miss the spectacle of watching our humans trying to tame a wild one.

Bowmore

Salami Testing

When water is falling out of the sky, humans get bored and restless and it can be particularly difficult to find a way to keep them occupied.  Luckily, I recently heard that my friend, Mo was putting on a salami testing event.  He’s chief of security at a falling over juice kennel at the top of a big hill near where we live so had some pull to make sure his humans would test some falling over juice on ours which we thought  would be an ideal way to keep them busy.

Humans don’t have good noses which is very obvious when you see them sniff falling over juice before they drink it because that stuff smells bad.  I told Talisker this but he insisted on finding out for himself.  He won’t do that again.

Bowmore

The Mathematics of Labrador Exhaustion

Did you know that some humans think that everything that happens can be explained by a mathematical equation?  I decided to try this out so after Talisker had some of his friends over this weekend I sat down to see if I could work out an equation to explain the results of the day and this is what I have come up with:
 

((Human Puppies*5)*SUM(Lab/Ridgeback, Whippet, Bulldog/Beagle, Los Gatos Shepherd, Los Gatos Terrier))/SQRT(SUM(Bread, Cheese, Salami, Sausage))=

 

Bowmore

Be Grateful to Big Birds

Yesterday was a day in this land when all the humans stay at home instead of going out to earn dog biscuits.  They gather together with all their litter mates and parents to say thank you to a big bird for letting them eat it; quite a curious tradition.  Talisker and I are also very grateful to the big bird because we get to finish all the stuff the humans don’t eat.  Unfortunately, like the humans Talisker hasn’t learnt moderation so had to join them sleeping off their excesses by the hole in the wall with fire.

Bowmore

Crunching Crispy Things

Man, I love this time of year.  Did you know that lots of brown crispy things fall out of the sky?  The human who grooms the green stuff in our garden tries to clear them up but they still keep coming.  You have no idea how much fun I’ve been having crunching them up.  You know, some humans like to make noise with bits of plastic with bubbles in, so I thought Mummy might think it fun to crunch crispy things with me.  I had this great idea to bring a mouthful of them into the kennel for her and was particularly pleased with myself for thinking up such a great gift.  She didn’t get it and sent me out to the room with no walls to crunch them on my own which isn’t nearly as much fun.

Talisker

Soft Paws

I always thought my retirement hobby was just something fun to do when I’m not occupied holding the sofas down, but it appears that humans sometimes give stuff away for writing on the writing box.  Mummy told me that if I wrote about why I like my claw covers on their Facebook page, the humans at softpaws.com might get our nice mail lady to bring me a packet.  This sounded a little strange to me but I didn’t have a busy week so I thought I would give it a go.  Would you believe it actually works?  Our mail lady is bringing me claw covers.

Whilst writing I of course couldn’t resist reading what others had to say.  It would appear a lot of cats wear claw covers.  At first I thought there must be an epidemic of sore toes in the cat community but on further reading I found this not to be the case. I have now come to the conclusion that there can’t be much of a mouse problem in this land as it would appear that there are large numbers of cats who have nothing better to do than spend their time sharpening their claws on the furniture in their kennels and the humans they are supposed to protect.  These humans, instead of protecting cats from sore toes by attaching covers to their claws appear to be doing this as an act of self preservation.

Bowmore

Training Humans

I have sore toes today so Tali took Mummy out to exercise her on his own.  The sofas were sleeping and didn't need restraining so I thought I would do a little research on the writing box to further my life long studies of humans.

I have always found humans a little difficult to train and I was amazed to find this moving picture.

I thought our humans were relatively intelligent, but now that I see it is possible to train a human to do this, I realize that I am way off the mark.

Bowmore

Feed us!

When we start to get our winter coats, something strange suddenly happens overnight to humans’ time keeping.  For some reason they sleep later in the morning so we get our breakfast late and then however hard we plead, they feed us dinner an hour late too.  I have spent the whole of my long life trying to figure out this phenomenon.  At first I thought they just got a little forgetful because they needed more falling over juice to keep them warm but this theory has been disproven.  I have now come to the conclusion that instead of relying on their tummy clocks, and I have to admit that mine is particularly accurate, they keep looking at the mechanical clocks on their paws which obviously don’t work well in the cold.

Bowmore

Doggyroids

I have always been proud of my physique.  I am an athlete and work hard to keep my body in shape.

This weekend when all the human puppies came around to beg, this cute chick from the next block called Ginger came to keep an eye on the ones she’s in charge of.  I of course went out to pass the time of day with her, see how she’s doing, check on her dating status … hey, don’t judge me.  I’m a normal young red blooded male. And, here’s where the blow hit. Obviously in an attempt to put Ginger off me, one of the human puppies she takes care of asked if I was on Doggyroids.

Let me get one thing straight. I do not take performance enhancing drugs.

Talisker

Howling Howlaween

On this day every year, human puppies dress up in disguises and knock on the doors of all the kennels in their neighborhood and beg for treats. Mummy doesn’t like us to beg and if we do, it pretty much guarantees that we get nothing but for some reason when humans disguise themselves she goes soft. Since this works so well some enterprising dogs do the same thing and you’d be amazed at the lengths a few will to go to.

Bowmore

Go Giants

This weekend humans were playing a big game of fetch on the moving picture frame on the wall which they all got really excited about.  I didn’t get a chance to see what the fuss was over as one of the sofas in our kennel was being particularly unruly so I was a little preoccupied holding it down.

The game was won by some humans called the San Francisco Giants.  Now, I consider myself to be fairly well travelled in Northern California and I have never met a Giant so they must have been hiding them well as trying to hide a super sized human must be pretty hard.  The thing I don’t understand is why the humans got so excited when they won.  Isn’t it obvious?  Normal sized humans couldn’t possibly be a match for a team of Giants.

Bowmore

Exercising Humans

You may not realize this, but humans need much more exercise than you might think.  We always take ours with us on our daily sniff and make sure that we pull hard on our leashes to give them a good workout but to really keep them in shape they need a little more than this.

In our kennel we have a special room dedicated to the exercise of humans.  Mummy’s very good at spending time in there every day but we still hang out with her to check she does all her exercises correctly.  Talisker likes to pace her by joining in while she does push ups which may look easy but are really quite exhausting.

Bowmore

Humans and brown squishy stuff

Yesterday, a kennel that makes falling over juice held a gathering for dogs and I was really looking forward to getting together with some of my friends.  Our humans can be easily bribed with falling over juice and I had hoped its availability might persuade them to give us a ride there in their motorized dog carrier.  I didn’t account for how pathetic they can be when water is falling out of the sky.  Bowmore says they can’t help it because they don’t have waterproof fur like us but I thought it a little mean to go to a different falling over juice kennel and make us wait in the motorized dog carrier while they had fun with THEIR friends.

Just when I thought the day couldn’t get any worse, our humans brought some of them back to our kennel.  I made the assumption they felt guilty and were bringing these dudes over to throw balls for me, but no, apparently they were there to torture me.  I tried everything, dropping the ball at their feet and staring at them, bouncing it around the room with no walls and chasing it hoping they would get the idea and I even dropped it several times on the plate they had food on with no success.  Would you believe the reason they gave for making my day miserable was that they don’t like my paws leaving the brown squishy stuff on the sofas that appears in the grass when water is falling out of the sky.  What purpose do sofas have other than to give me something to clean my paws on?

Talisker

Water Frisbee

Being fish retrievers, swimming is in our blood.  Our friends, Austin and Pumbaa have a hole in the ground with water and since it was a little hot this weekend we decided to go and join them.  In my younger days this was one of my favorite sports and our humans have been kind enough to give me a floating coat so I can still play Water Frisbee with the guys.

Pumbaa is an expert diver and I had hoped he would give Tali a few tips but he was in a bad mood and didn’t want to play so Austin and I did our best to point him in the right direction.  He caught on pretty quickly.  Sometimes it takes old dogs to teach a new dog new tricks.  The humans really weren’t much help.  They tried, but in the end we just let them stand around and drink falling over juice which is more within their range of skills.

Bowmore

In Deep *!?#

It’s important to keep an eye on what teenagers are doing on the writing box.  Daddy is in the land where humans used to wear hats with horns, and Talisker has always been very good at winding Daddy around his paws so I think he thought this writing box message that I caught might divert the inevitable.

Subject: In trouble again

Date: 10/2/2010 10:53 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time
From: talisker@dogggy.com
To: daddy@daddy.net

I'm in deep *!?# again.  Daddy, please come home and rescue me.  I got caught short while mummy was out this afternoon and I found what looked like a drainage hole in the living room so I peed in it.  How was I to know that’s where the cold air comes from?  Mummy is being very quiet and said something about Labrador burgers instead of growling which I know to be REALLY bad.  She spent all evening with her hands in the hole and says she has to get special stuff tomorrow to finish it.  I really don't understand what the fuss is about.  It smells pretty good to me, but you know what she can be like.

Tali

Of course, I witnessed the whole thing and he really is in deep *!?# and even Daddy can’t save him.

Bowmore

Recycling

Our humans are always making a big deal about something they call “recycling”.  They place stuff they don’t want anymore into a big box for other humans to take away and use again.

Mummy put a chicken she didn’t want anymore into a box in the room where she makes food and since I wanted it I thought I was doing the correct thing in removing it to recycle it.  Please explain why she took it away and growled at me.

Talisker

Heat Wave

When we were watching the moving picture frame on the wall yesterday there was a man in front of a map of this land with lots of numbers on it .  He claimed the numbers indicated a heat wave.  Now, I know this to be incorrect because this is the time of year when we start to get our Winter coats.

Mummy didn’t take us out for our evening neighborhood sniff yesterday or our morning sniff today because she claimed it was too hot for an old man like me.  I of course made the natural assumption that she and the man in the moving picture frame were involved in a conspiracy to allow humans to be lazy as the temperature appeared to be just fine inside our kennel.  We pleaded all day but Mummy still wouldn’t let us out to prove her wrong.  We did eventually win and she opened the door and closed it very quickly behind us.  I have to admit to feeling very bad now for doubting her concern for my welfare … it’s hot out there!

Bowmore

Naughty Birds

Sometimes when humans come to visit I just can’t contain my excitement and jump up and kiss them all.  Mummy says this is naughty and puts me behind bars in the room where she makes food until I promise to keep all my feet on the floor at the same time.

We went with our humans to visit some of their friends who share their kennel with little birds who were already behind bars when we arrived.  I guess they must have been trying to kiss the other human visitors before we arrived, but they obviously hadn’t learnt that the key to being released is to keep quiet and promise to behave because they yelled a lot and had to stay behind bars the whole time we were there.

Talisker

Blending in with your surroundings

It’s always good to hear news of old friends and I am pleased that our humans went to visit a really cute little female called Annie at the end of their adventure.  I remember with nostalgia the last time she came to visit with her humans in their big motorized kennel.  It was just after my older brother, Cider had left us and I was feeling a little lonely so it was good to have the company of her and her sister, Ebony.  My legs worked a little better then so we went for a run at the edge of the big lake called the Pacific Ocean.

I was very sorry to hear that Ebony had to leave Annie to go and keep Cider company, but she has a new sister now called Ali.  She's a Tibetan Terrier and her ancestors were the sacred caretakers of humans in a far away land who wrap red sheets around their bodies, so she's a little wary of humans who wear trousers.

I have great admiration for Annie’s sofa restraining technique.  She sneaks up on them and then blends in with her surroundings so they don’t know they are being restrained until it’s too late.  I hope she is finding teaching her special talent to Ali as rewarding as I have in imparting my knowledge of the care of humans to Talisker.

Bowmore

The Wedding Guest

You may remember that in April I wrote about my concern for Mr Bear’s white relatives so you can imagine my surprise when a picture of one of them came out of Mummy’s picture box.

Whilst on their recent adventure, our humans went to a wedding in a place right at the top of this country where not many of them live.  Weddings are a human ritual where they put metal bands on their fingers to show that they are not a stray and shouldn’t be put up for adoption, similar to when they put a collar around our necks.  They make quite a fuss of it and all their friends and pack members come to watch.  I can only assume that Mr Bear’s relative, who I have learnt is called Icabod, must have been a guest too.  I suppose I shouldn’t have been too surprised at this since the wedding was closer to the land he comes from than where Mr Bear lives.

Bowmore

Mouse Catching Aristocracy

Our humans have been really busy since they got back from their recent adventures so hearing about the guys they visited has been slow.

Today, Mummy gave us the scoop on one of our relatives, a fish retriever called Bone who is chief of security for her littermate’s family.  That dude really has it tough.  The most important part of our job is barking at potential threats, but this guy can’t bark because human puppies sleep a lot and adult humans growl at him when they wake up.  The upside is they’re pretty messy eaters so he has a lot of plate cleaning to do but of course, anything in excess can be pretty tiring.

We also learnt about Minstrel who helps Bone with vermin control.  I don’t have much experience of working with cats and found this a little confusing.  We get a few squirrels in our garden which are pretty easy to chase away so I couldn’t understand how such a little dude could be useful.

Being retired and having more spare time than me, Bowmore got on the writing box to do some research.  It turns out that Bone and Minstrel have quite a challenge to deal with as their City has lots of rats and mice as well as squirrels.  Apparently, Minstrel is descended from a long line of famous mouse catchers, the most famous of which is Puss in Boots so it would appear that Bone has mouse catching aristocracy to help him.

Talisker

Dougal, the Paper Dog

Our humans have just returned to our kennel after a long adventure which has seriously hindered my writing career as Mummy insisted on taking her writing box with her.

Before joining Daddy in the far away place where he earns dog biscuits, Mummy went on a short tour of the land she comes from to visit the dogs who take care of her pack.  I would have joined her but in my advanced years I only travel first class and flying metal tubes discriminate against dogs and make us travel third class which I find very distasteful in this day and age.

Mummy’s first visit was with Dougal.  His breed have a lot of energy which he needs because he takes care of her Mummy and Daddy who are almost as old in human years as I am in dog years so they need a lot of help with daily chores like fetching the newspaper.  The land they live in is obviously not very advanced or they would read a writing box like I do to see what is going on in the world.

Bowmore

Humans' seasonal ability to play fetch

I have observed that humans’ ability to play fetch changes with the seasons.  When we have our winter coats they catch the ball and run away with it, but now that we have our summer coats they appear to be getting closer to playing the game correctly, however they still have a lot to learn.  Instead of bringing the ball back to the human that threw it, they throw it to another human so it takes a lot longer to get back to the chief thrower.

At this point I would like to point out that in my many years of taking care of humans, it is my experience that there is always one who just doesn’t play fair.  I feel quite sorry for all the humans who are concentrating hard on catching the ball because there is always one who stands in front of them with a big stick and tries to knock it away from them and then runs away so he can’t get caught.

Bowmore

Feisty Sofas

Our humans are not at our kennel this week so since Talisker’s security duties are reduced and he has some free time his friend, Piccolo has come to stay with his human.  Despite his short stature he can hold his own in a game of chase but when it comes to the art of sofa restraint, the ones in our kennel are particularly large and feisty so he needs a little help.

Bowmore

Catching my best side

Last week I kept the old dude company when he went to visit our doctor (he’s always got something wrong with him).  Daddy told him about my sore leg and he wanted to take some pictures of it.  He obviously doesn’t walk around with a picture box like Mummy because the next day we had to get up really early to go back to see him before Mummy and I could have breakfast.  All she had before we left our kennel was the brown water she drinks every morning which is not good as she growls a lot when she hasn’t had the hot bread she eats with it.

Our doctor didn’t like the picture of my leg which I completely understand because it looked very strange.  I don’t want to boast, but I like to think of myself as photogenic, but he gave me sleeping juice so it’s not surprising he couldn’t get my best side when I was too sleepy to pose properly.

Yesterday I visited a special doctor who obviously has a different taste in pictures as he spent a long time looking at it and was really excited.  I tried to understand what he was telling Mummy (he was using a lot of big words I haven’t heard before) and I think he said he likes fixing sore legs and he’s going to use this picture to fix mine.

Talisker

Blue Teeth

A few days ago, Mummy bought a new talking box.  She always likes getting new toys so you’d think she would have come home happy but instead she was growling quietly to herself.  Daddy says this is because the kennel it came from provides a community service by employing humans who are not able to earn a lot of dog biscuits, and Talisker and I know more about talking boxes than they do.

Having always been inquisitive, I got on the writing box to see if I could work out why Mummy went to a talking box kennel that made her growl and I think I have worked it out.  They sell talking boxes with blue teeth and I think she just wanted to get one that matched my claws.

Bowmore

Be in touch with your feminine side

Now that we have our Summer coats and it’s warm outside, I find my paw covers make my feet too hot.  This is quite a problem as I get sore claws if I don’t wear them when we’re out exercising our humans.  To help me out, our doctor recommended special covers that Mummy attaches to my claws with juice that stops them falling off.  I have since learnt that some female humans must suffer from the same problem as they also attach covers to their claws which they like to color coordinate with their clothes.  I think Mummy is trying to get me in touch with my feminine side as she has inflicted blue claw covers on me to match my exercise harness.

Bowmore

A Green Garden

Mummy likes our garden to be green which happens when it gets fed lots of water.  When water falls out of the sky, the parts of the garden that are not soft to lie on get green too which you would have thought would make her happy.  However, today we watched as she used a machine with a big stick that sprayed lots of water at this part of the garden which instead of making it greener, made all the green go away.

Firstly, if water is supposed to make the garden green, why did this water do the opposite, and secondly, why did this make Mummy happy?

Bowmore

Correct Feeding of Humans

We’ve had a very tiring two weeks.  Daddy’s been away earning dog biscuits which means extra security work for Talisker.  I take on Mummy watching to relieve him of that part of his duties.

Much to our relief, on Saturday Daddy came back to the kennel.  I’ve been quite concerned about his diet when he’s away because as we all know, it’s important to make sure your humans eat plenty of fresh vegetables, meat and fish to keep them healthy.  I learnt on the writing box that in the land he visits they eat a lot of pickled Herrings.  This sounds particularly unappetizing so we put him straight into the motorized dog carrier on his return and took him to a human feeding kennel where we could watch to make sure he ate the correct food.

Secure in the knowledge that Daddy’s dietary requirements are back on track and he is here to watch Mummy, I have been able to relax the rest of the weekend and am now ready to return to my regular duty of sofa restraint.

Bowmore

Bowmore's Special Treats

Bowmore’s old friend, Levi came to play yesterday.  I was showing him my favorite move of the double sofa jump with belly bounce off the armchair and thought I’d throw in a new move and added a twist landing; big mistake.  It made my leg really hurt.  I screamed for Mummy and have now learnt that this gets me lots of attention.  Maybe I should scream more often.  She cuddled me and rubbed my leg and then spoke to our doctor on the talking box who said I could have one of Bowmore’s special treats.  Man, now I know why the old dude’s so happy all the time.  Those things make you feel REALLY good.

Talisker

Civic Duty

I would like to get the record straight about our supposed bad behavior this afternoon.

Firstly, I would like to explain that as Head of Security in this kennel the old dude taught me that it is my responsibility to keep up with local problem areas so that I can correctly identify potential threats.

I would now like to address what happened today.

Mummy took us to a large field with a big pond where humans go to play when they’re not out earning dog biscuits.  Now, I have read about this place on the writing box but have never visited it before.  I learned that something called Park Services no longer allows humans to feed the big birds because there are too many of them.  When we chased them today we were merely performing our civic duty as security officers in helping to reduce their numbers (the old dude likes to keep his paw in and help out occasionally).  Mummy’s response to growl loudly at us and put us back in the motorized dog carrier before we had a chance to perform this duty effectively was extremely un-civic minded of her and showed her total lack of awareness of local current affairs.

Talisker

Bowmore for President

Today is the Birthday of the land we live in and to celebrate, humans gather together to drink falling over juice and put dead cow on the outside fire box.  Our humans went with us to the kennel of Talisker’s friend, Wally. His humans are really good at cooking dead cow on fire boxes.

Now, as a natural born American (and I have the pedigree certificate to prove it), I have recently learnt that I am eligible to be President of this land.  I am told that I have to be 35 years of age but I can’t find a rule that stipulates as to whether this measure is in dog or human years. I am now 87 in dog years so I consider myself well within the qualifying criteria.  Humans just fight over this job, so I think it’s time the Dog party took over and I have decided that with my many years of experience of caring for humans and diverting possible threats from our kennel, I am the ideal candidate to lead the charge.

There are a couple of issues which I feel very strongly about which I intend to use as my main platform.  Firstly, we need to deal with what in my opinion is an excessive taxation on dog biscuits and secondly, every town should be required to have a place where we can exercise our humans off leash.

Bowmore