Eating Crow

Tobermory and I have had a particularly stressful few months which gave me a bad case of what I have discovered is called “writer’s block”.

 

It all started in September.  Mummy and Daddy appeared to be plotting with one of their friends who kept stopping by with lots of pieces of paper for them to put their paw prints on.  Next, a big white box arrived.  A female human accompanied it who had the audacity to tell Mummy to shut us in the kitchen and “remove all trace of dog”.  This made me very suspicious and it turned out to be with good reason.  She persuaded some of the weaker minded pieces of furniture in our kennel to climb inside the white box, including my sleeping hutch which was the ultimate betrayal.  The box then ran away with all of them inside.

 

The next few weeks were a blur.  There was talk of different humans taking over occupancy of our kennel.   We’ve only known one kennel and no one explained to us how this works.  I’m sure you can understand the mental anguish it created.  There was a general atmosphere of unrest.  We weren’t allowed to practice the art of sofa restraint, the talking box would ring and our humans would run around beating the cushions on the sofas and beds.  They would then trick us into thinking that they were taking us for a neighborhood sniff, but all we did was sit outside the kennel at the end of the road that sells warm, brown waking up juice.  They seemed to be drinking a lot more of it than usual and Tobermory and I were getting very concerned that we were dealing with an addiction problem.

 

You have to understand that in the 38 dog years that I have been protecting our humans, they have been pretty predictable.  I have always felt confident in trusting the decisions they make that affect our lives, but this new behavior we were observing was very disturbing and I was beginning to doubt their judgment.  It now transpires that all these actions were actually planned and were for the good of all of us.  After spending a day with some of our favorite human neighbors who bake nice treats for us, our humans came to get us in the motorized dog carrier and took us to a new kennel, and there was all our furniture including my sleeping hutch.  It said it had been on vacation.

 

We now live in a smaller kennel which significantly reduces the security work load.  The best part is that it’s possible to multi-task by monitoring all entries while practicing the art of sofa restraint.  Mummy says that I now have to eat a crow for doubting her, although I fail to understand why that’s a punishment.  The ones around here look pretty fat and tasty.

Talisker

 

Sammy the Surfer

The life of a Chief of Security is not always an easy one.  Protecting humans can present some unusual challenges, especially when they decide to take up strange occupations.

 

Last weekend we accompanied our humans to one of their favorite falling over juice kennels, Loma Prieta Winery.  One of the nice humans who takes care of all of when we are there told us about her family’s Chief of Security, Sammy.

Sammy’s Mummy has started to take part in an activity called surfing which involves standing on a big board that floats on top of waves.  This presented Sammy with a huge problem.  At first appearances, being in charge of her humans’ safety, she was extremely concerned and decided that the only way to check if this activity should be curtailed would be to try it herself.  This is a prime example of the human expression “don’t knock it until you’ve tried it”.  Not only did she come to the conclusion that no blocking action of this activity was required, but has now become a regular surfer alongside her Mummy.

Talisker

Mummy turns 336

I turned 14 dog years today and Mummy turned 336 last Sunday.  She said it wasn’t important and didn’t want to celebrate, but Talisker disagreed.  Can you imagine turning 336 and thinking it’s not important?

 

Talisker likes to throw parties so used my Birthday as an excuse to throw a joint one for both of us, and man, did we have a lot of fun. A dozen dogs, lots of balls and 50 humans drinking falling over juice always makes for a great afternoon as they become a little careless about dropping human food and much more generous when we get to eat cake.

Tobermory

The Dogutante

Our friend, Bailey has a new little sister, Sierra.  At the age of 13 human years, he decided it was time to choose a successor to his role as chief of security in his kennel so that he can enjoy a leisurely retirement.

 

I’ve been doing a little research and it appears that in certain sections of human society, the social debut of a well-bred young female human is very important.  In the South of this land, it is called “Cotillion” and in the land that our humans came from, it is termed as “The Season”.  These special female humans are called Debutantes.

 

As for Tobermory, myself and previous pups during their internship, Sierra has already had a chance to view the human world from the “puppoose” that all of us occupied in our early years.  She has finally had all the special juice from our Doctor that keeps her healthy, so this week she made her social out-of-bag debut when we all went to listen to howling humans.  Having only had brothers, I’m not familiar with the etiquette around introducing female dogs to society, but I guess this was Sierra’s Dogutante debut.

Talisker

The Wisdom of Elders

It is now howling human season in our town.  It happens every Wednesday and Sunday when it’s warm outside and the sun likes to stay awake longer.

 

Last Wednesday, a human called Mary Wilson was the featured howler.  Many human years ago, when our humans were puppies, she used to howl with a famous group of females called the Supremes.  I don’t really get the human howling thing.  They sound pretty strange, but this one obviously has special powers, like the humans who blow a little pipe to make snakes come out of baskets and wriggle around.  I have a pretty good memory for faces, but this howling human attracted a lot I hadn’t seen before.  Instead of sitting quietly and listening while they drank falling over juice, many were standing up and wriggling like snakes.  It was pretty funny to watch.

 

A lot of the human listeners, like ours, bring their security detail with them.  Since there was a larger number than usual, we got to meet a few new friends.  One, whose company I particularly enjoyed, was a charming elderly lady called CeCe.  She’s a lion chaser like our friend, Truman’s father.

It’s important to learn from our elders, and like my dearly departed older brother, Bowmore, CeCe had lots of stories to tell and nuggets of wisdom to impart.  She hung out with us for a long time, and even Tobermory stopped his constant moving and sat down to listen.  She’s retired from her security duties now, but the humans that she has been taking care of her whole life are now repaying her by taking really good care of her and making sure she enjoys her retirement.  She gets lots of cuddles from the human puppies in her kennel, and since her back legs don’t work as well as they used to, her Daddy helps her out so she can still get out with her family and keep enjoying life.

 

Talisker 

Fluffy Yellow Ball Swatting

Yesterday, Daddy got up really early to watch humans wearing white body covers on the picture box play with yellow fluffy balls in a place called Wimbledon.

 

Humans in this land have put their own interpretations on the long standing canine game of Fetch, two of which they call Football and Baseball.  The yellow fluffy ball game looks very different.  It seems to be based on the feline game of Swat, only instead of using their paws, they swat balls with frying pans made of string.  I assume that this is because humans are not as coordinated as mouse hunters so need a larger surface area.

 

Wimbledon is in the same land that our humans came from.  This year, the game with male human competitors was won by Andy Murray who like Daddy, comes from the North where male humans wear skirts.  This win is unusual because it’s the first time in 77 human years (that’s 6 whole canine life spans) that a human from that land has won, and even more unusual because skirt wearing male humans have long been considered as being particularly ineptat ball swatting.

 

Mummy said that humans in Wimbledon’s land are fanatical about watching the ball swatting that takes place there every year.  You’d think that if they watched it so much, they might be able to pick up a few tips and win a little more often, but I think I’ve worked out what the problem is.  From listening to the stories of Mummy and her friends’ visits to Wimbledon, they were obviously being horribly distracted by strawberries covered in thick cow juice and a brown liquid full of fruit called Pimm’s.
 

Talisker

Hot Waves

In the last couple of days, I keep hearing the humans on the moving picture frame on the wall saying that we are having hot waves, especially where our kennel is.  Once, when I was a puppy, our humans took us to a place called Carmel where we chased fluffy yellow balls on strange ground that moved when we ran on it.  There were waves there, but they cold.  I’ve never seen anything that looks like a wave here, hot or cold.

 

However, I have noticed in the last few days that someone has seriously turned up the heat outside our kennel which is very uncomfortable when you are covered in fur.  Inside, there is a little box on the wall with buttons that our humans press to make cold air blow out of holes in the floor (I like to lie on the one under Mummy’s writing box table).  I’ve never seen it, but there must be a little box with buttons outside that has gone wrong.  I hope it gets mended soon because I’m really bored of staying inside.

Tobermory

Haggis: The Real Truth

Our humans like to have their friends over to join them to eat.  Mostly, Daddy cooks pieces of dead cow over fire in a big metal box, but recently they served something called Haggis.  Mummy likes to explain what she has prepared and where it came from.  As fish retrievers, we are particularly well known for our love of fine cuisine, so Tobermory and I always listen to her stories particularly carefully.  I would now like to tell you what we learnt about this interesting little beast.

 

Haggis are only indigenous to the land that Daddy came from where the male humans wear skirts.  There are two types of Haggis, Anticlockwise and Clockwise.  Ancient Haggis would graze up and down hills but started to graze in circles around the hills and evolved into the two breeds.  An Anticlockwise Haggis has shorter legs on the left side to make it easier to walk around the hills, and a Clockwise Haggis has shorter legs on the right.

 

As an inquisitive dog, I felt that my Haggis education would not be complete without seeing what a live one looks like so searched for a picture of one on Mummy’s writing box, and here it is.  As you can see from its lopsided appearance, this is obviously a Clockwise Haggis.

 

After an extensive hunt, Mummy found a particularly fine herd of Haggis on the East Coast and managed to obtain an Anticlockwise Haggis, generally known as the most tasty of the two which I gather is very unusual this early in the Haggis hunting season.  Tobermory and I helped to clear up and we have to agree that in the words of a very famous male skirt wearer from many human years ago, this truly is a “chieftain o' the puddin' race.”

 

Talisker

How Toby got his Wag Back

As fish retrievers, swimming is in our blood.  On Sunday our humans went to eat human kibble with their friends at a kennel with a hole in the ground with water, so you can imagine our excitement when we were told that not only were we allowed to swim, but one of the humans that lived there threw yellow fluffy balls into the water for us to fetch. 

 

I have to admit to being a little rusty as I haven’t been swimming since my first lesson last year.  It took a little time for me to get the hang of it, but Talisker’s a good swimmer and gave me some pointers, like use all four feet to paddle and most useful of all, use your tail to steer.  I didn’t learn that last year, but man does it make the whole swimming thing easier.  Eventually Talisker told me it was time to get out of the water and go and check out the human kibble.  I was enjoying myself too much and kept going until Daddy spoiled all my fun and made me join Talisker under the table.

 

When we got back to our kennel I was exhausted and went straight to bed.  That’s why they call it “dog tired.”  The problem happened when I woke up.  I’m always happy to see our humans in the morning and wag my tail enthusiastically to show how much I love them, but it wouldn’t stand up and wag.  Do you have any idea how frustrating that is?  Talisker told me it was my own fault because I didn’t get out of the water when he told me to so had worn my tail out.  The worst bit is that when we had to sit before eating our breakfast, my tail hurt.  Mummy was really mean all day, calling me “Mr Droopy Tail” and Daddy said they should give me one of the little blue treats that humans eat when their tails don’t stand up.

 

Finally Mummy took pity on me and spoke with our Doctor on the talking box who advised giving me one of the treats that Talisker gets when his leg hurts.  I’ve always wondered why he’s so happy when he gets those things and now I understand.  Everything outside the front of our kennel looked much less threatening and didn’t seem to need barking at and the best part of all, my tail stopped hurting and I got my wag back.

Tobermory

Proof of Adoption

Mummy’s picture box got sick last week.  When we get sick, she always makes sure that we go to the best doctor available to repair us, so of course she did the same for her picture box and sent it to special doctors that only repair that breed.

Yesterday Mummy received an upsetting note from the picture box doctors telling her that they would not repair it because it has a number on it that says it was not born in this land.  She told them she has proof of adoption from here, but they said they need adoption papers from the land it came from.

 

Our humans have little blue books that prove they belong here.  I just checked these books carefully and am distressed to find that it is written very clearly that they were not born in this land.  As the senior dog in this kennel responsible for human care, this leaves me very concerned that if they get sick, I might have difficulty finding a human doctor to repair them.

Talisker

Abandonment

I don’t know what’s going on but it upsets me.  Last night Daddy put some of his body covers in an evil black box with wheels.  This usually happens before we go to have a sleepover with our friend, Truman, but Mummy helped and didn’t put any of her body covers in an evil black box.  I’ve never seen this happen before.

We all went to sleep as normal, Daddy gave us breakfast this morning and then a yellow human carrier took him away.  Mummy was still under her bird fur and seemed to be completely unconcerned.   Talisker says this is normal behavior as the yellow human carrier transports Daddy to a flying metal tube that takes him to far away places to earn dog biscuits.  I don’t buy it.  I checked the dog biscuit storage and there are plenty there.  There’s something really fishy going on here.  I don’t trust Mummy and Talisker.  They have to be hiding something but all I can do for the moment is sit on the bottom step by the entrance to our kennel and hope Daddy comes back soon.  I’ll have to reevaluate the situation tomorrow.

Tobermory

It's All About Mummy

Humans have a lot of interesting customs, some of which I find very confusing, like the one where bunnies leave brightly colored eggs in long grass for human puppies to find.  However, there are some that are a great idea.  Yesterday was a good example.  Humans dedicated the whole day to doing nice things for their Mummies.  Tobermory and I are particularly fond of ours so we thought we should join in on this custom.

 

We started the day by giving Mummy a really good face clean.  Humans wriggle around when we clean their faces, so it’s best to catch them just as they are waking up so that you can trap them under the big bag full of bird fur that they sleep under.  We then took her to a human feeding station where we could sit under the table so that we could help finish the food that she and Daddy couldn’t eat.

 

There is one question that I have.  There are days called Dog Days.  Is that when we're supposed to get special care from our humans?

Talisker





Talisker Turns 5

Talisker turned 5 human years last week.  This is a big deal for a dog.  Mummy’s parents understand this so travelled all the way from the far away land they live in on a flying metal tube in recognition of this milestone.  I invited lots of our friends to help celebrate and Mummy made a cake with orange vegetables and nut butter in it.   This is a different kind of butter from the stuff she puts on her crispy bread in the morning.  That’s cow butter and not nearly as tasty.

The cake is really good, but the best part is the cheese from small human kennels that Mummy puts on top of it.  Our humans get it all over their paws while they’re giving the cake to us so we have to clean them off.  Humans are pretty tasty to lick but when they are covered in small human kennel cheese, human licking is a completely different experience.

Tobermory

Extravagant Gifts

For some time, Truman’s humans have been replacing lots of the old pieces of their kennel with new and improved ones.  He’s been making himself useful, helping the humans doing the replacing while his have been out earning dog biscuits to pay them however, last week his offers of help were shunned.  Not even his humans were allowed to stay at their kennel so they all slept in ours.

 

Every day we go for a neighborhood sniff with our humans to keep them exercised.  As hospitable hosts, we of course invited Truman to join us.  He’s been working very hard as a human feeding bowl pre-washer and expressed interest in finding a gift for his humans while we were out.  He believed that he had earned enough dog biscuits to find something nice and shiny and new for them and wanted us to help him find something suitable.

 

We sniffed our way past lots of kennels offering shiny new things but none of them caught Truman’s eye until we came to a big sign with “Bentley” written on it.  There were lots of really shiny motorized dog carriers behind it and he decided that this was what he wanted to get for his humans.

 

Now, I don’t know what Truman has been sniffing, but whatever is in the new pieces of his kennel have seriously affected his grasp on reality.  Have you seen the sticker price of all those motorized dog carriers behind the Bentley sign?  He’s going to have to lick a lot more human feeding bowls before he can even buy a picture of the little wings on the front of one of those things.

 

Talisker



Poor Judgment

As Chief of Security in this kennel, it is my job with the aid of Tobermory to ensure the safety of our humans at all times.  It always concerns me when they go away without us but they seem to return unscathed.  I have therefore in the past been of the opinion that they must be sensible about only going to places that are safe for humans without their security detail.

 

Last week we went for a play date at Truman's kennel which turned into a sleepover.  This is always a telltale sign that our humans have decided to go on an adventure on their own.  I tried not to worry and was relieved when they returned safely, although I have to admit to being a little indignant when I saw the boards strapped to the top of the motorized dog carrier.  They had obviously snuck off to slide down hills covered in white slippy stuff without considering that we might want to play in it too.

 

On their way home, our humans stopped to slide down some big hills at a place called Kirkwood.  Sliding down slippy stuff can be very hazardous so I was upset with them that not only did they go there without our supervision, but also that it was a place unknown to us.  There's a reason why we have such big noses.  It’s so that we can run proper security sweeps which humans just can’t do with their little noses.   You’d think they might have worked out the true purpose of our daily neighborhood sniffs by now, especially Mummy who has had a canine security detail her entire life.

 

I was checking through the pictures on Mummy’s picture box to see if I could see any evidence of potential hazards when I saw a picture of a sign stating “Dogs, keep your owners on a leash.”  Firstly, we take care of our humans so it is obvious that we own them and not the other way around.  Secondly, I now seriously question their judgment when they walked straight past such a blatant warning that it was unsafe for them to be there without canine protection.

Talisker





Criminal Control

Our humans have always misunderstood my motives for digging holes in the green stuff in the garden.  They think I do it just for fun and I keep telling them I hear creatures underneath which could be threatening their welfare.
 
At last I have proof.  One of these creatures had the audacity to come to the surface.  I saw him but couldn’t get there in time to do the collar, as they say on the moving picture frame on the wall.  There’s a really cool story I like to watch called “Law and Order” about good humans catching bad humans so I know the lingo.
 
Talisker and I dragged Mummy outside to show her the evidence.  As any good detective would do, she showed me pictures of potential culprits on her writing box and I identified one called Gopher.  Just like the stories on the moving picture frame on the wall, she offered either one of us a special reward if we could bring Gopher to her, dead or alive.
 
I would really like to earn that reward, but Mummy is in a hurry to catch the guy so has hired a human with special tracking skills to find this criminal.  Talisker says it’s specialist work and I should just stand back, watch and learn, but I’m not letting my guard down.  If that little guy pokes his nose out in my site, I’m going to make him pay for messing with Mummy’s garden.

Tobermory

A Slippy Education

In order to properly care for humans, it is important in any young pup’s education to experience at first hand as much as possible of the strange things that humans do to amuse themselves.  One of the strangest ones that I have observed is their desire to ride up hills covered in white slippy stuff on moving sofas and then slide down them with boards strapped to their feet.

 

White slippy stuff is exhilarating to play in for us too, so when I saw Daddy putting the boards on top of the motorized dog carrier, I felt it would be more fun for Tobermory if I didn’t fill him in as to what was in store.  Your first experience of white slippy stuff is one you never forget.

 

I regretted my decision as soon as the motorized dog carrier started to go up and the ground turned white.  I had been hoping to catch up on some sleep, but Tobermory kept climbing on and off the bags of human body covers to get a better view and repeatedly said “Man, you gotta see this.  It’s way cool”.  I had to listen to his incessant whining and endure his constant wriggling for 2 very long hours.

 

Our friend, Truman and his humans joined us.  Can you believe that he is 3 human years old and hadn’t seen white slippy stuff yet?  His Mummy doesn’t like sliding down hills and prefers to watch while she makes human body covers with two sticks and pieces of string.  We were in a place she didn’t know so I thought it prudent for us to keep her company.  The kids were amazed at the site of moving sofas when all their education had taught them that they need to be restrained to prevent them from moving.

 

Most owners of kennels surrounded by white slippy stuff seem to be careless with their security however, those whose kennels they leave in the care of Tahoe Moon Properties have a special understanding of the importance of visiting humans bringing their security detail with them.  At the end of the first day, I left the job of securing the perimeter of the one we stayed in to Truman and Tobermory.  I was only interested in taking a nap by the hole in the wall with fire which I felt was only fair.  Their attention all day had been focused solely on watching the sliding humans, leaving me completely in charge of taking care of Truman’s Mummy with no breaks.  I seriously needed to catch up on my daily requirement of 20 hours of sleep.

Talisker

Spring Clean

Humans seem to have what I consider to be an unhealthy obsession with cleanliness.  Every day ours stand in a glass box that sprays water all over them.  Of course, you do have to take into account that with such little tongues and their limited flexibility, it must be difficult to clean themselves without a little help however, I do think they take it to the extreme.  They are perfectly aware that too much of the bubbly stuff that they put on their heads plays havoc with natural waterproofing.  If they took notice of this fact, they wouldn’t need to walk around under little single posted portable tents when water is falling out of the sky.

 

I am pleased to say that our humans don’t inflict this cleanliness obsession on us too often.  However, Mummy does feel it is necessary to subject us occasionally to what she calls Bath Day, with the exception of one every year when it starts to get warm outside which is called Spring Clean.  I can tell when it’s about to happen.  She gathers together lots of big fluffy water eating cloths and piles them on the floor in a room containing a big pot for cooking humans.  She thinks she’s being subtle, but I always know what she’s up to.  She makes us climb into the pot and then a long water snake sprays warm water at us, after which Mummy covers us in bubbly stuff and gives us a good scratch all over.  That bit’s not too bad.  We have to endure this twice before being rubbed with the water eating cloths.  I always like to show my dislike by shaking at regular intervals during the process so that Mummy gets covered in the bubbly stuff too, in the hope that she might get the hint and give up this practice.

 

 

It’s always upsetting to see lots of the brown stuff that’s on the ground outside disappearing down the hole in the pot.  Humans don’t seem to realize that we like to keep a little of this in our fur to help with insulation and it takes quite a lot of work to achieve the correct level without it becoming itchy.  You would think that Mummy might have caught on after all these years when she sees us rush outside and roll around in an attempt to recapture a little.

Talisker

Cover Dog Aspirations

Tobermory is aspiring to be a Cover Dog.  In my observations of humans I have noticed that exceptional examples of the species get their picture on the big floppy books that live in the mail box.  I know Tobermory is a handsome kid, but until I learnt what he was really up to I thought he had some serious delusions of grandeur.

 

Mummy spends a lot of time working with the Pacific Stroke Association helping humans recovering from their brains falling out like hers did.  Tobermory has been observing this and decided that he needs to do something to help sick dogs.

 

Our beds come from a floppy book called Orvis which holds competitions for dogs to be their Cover Dog.  Humans vote on which dog they think is the cutest, but in order to vote, they have to give a little of the green stuff that buys dog biscuits to help canine cancer research and the Morris Animal Foundation.

 

I know that Tobermory can be a little trying to live with sometimes, but this time I am very proud of the kid.  He spent a considerable amount of time searching through all the pictures that Mummy takes with her picture box and found one that she calls "Never let go of the things you love."  He thinks it best shows off his good side and of course includes his favorite bone.  I have to admit that it is a pretty good bone.  I try to sneak it away from him when he's not watching which has become particularly difficult since he started sleeping with it in his mouth.

 

Please follow this link, www.orvis.com/coverdog and help Tobermory achieve his goal of becoming an Orvis Cover Dog to help sick dogs.

Talisker

Super Ball

Last weekend we watched humans play fetch on the moving picture frame on the wall.  Talisker was being very scathing about their inability to follow the correct rules of the game.  I personally think the rules are open to interpretation and these humans seemed to pretty much follow my thinking on the subject.

 

The whole purpose of playing fetch is to fetch the ball.  If someone else gets the ball first it’s obvious to me that the only sensible course of action is to jump on top of them and grab it.  I use this method of ball retrieval regularly and seeing all those big humans do the same, confirmed to me that despite what Talisker thinks, this is a perfectly legitimate tactic.  It makes fetch far more exciting which is why this version of the game is called “Super Ball.” 

There is however one thing that surprises me.  It’s my understanding that there are supposed to be 49 humans in the pack that wear red and gold body covers, but I could only count 11.  If the other 38 had turned up to jump on the black and white ones, they would have had a much better chance of winning.

Tobermory

Becoming American

Last week, Mummy became an American.  She had to learn lots of stuff about this land and pass a test to get a piece of paper to say she belongs here.  Tobermory and I are Americans and I guess they must be much tougher on humans, because the only test we ever took involved us sitting, lying down and coming to humans when they asked us to.  We got extra points for shaking paws with them, quite a peculiar human custom.  You can learn so much more about someone from sniffing their butt.

I heard Daddy testing Mummy and some of the questions he asked involved knowing the names of famous humans and what they did to have them remembered in the history books of this land.  One thing confuses me.  I didn’t hear any mention of dogs that should be remembered so I would like to suggest a few historical dog facts that should be included.

About 250 human years ago, there was a big fight between the humans in the top and bottom of this land.  A very successful human fighter for the top of the land called General Custer was well known for his canine officers who advised him on fight tactics.  These dogs obviously had a major role in our democracy.

Of course, we must not forget the role of dogs around 100 human years ago who served during World War 1.   They helped to preserve freedom for lots of lands, not just ours.  One memorable canine soldier is Stubby.  He served in the 102^nd Infantry, 26^th Division.  His secret weapon was his particularly powerful nose which he used to warn the humans when there was bad stuff in the air.  His most famous act was to use his nose to find a bad human who was watching the ones he protected, for which he was awarded the honor of being the only dog in history to be promoted to the rank of Sergeant through combat.

More recently, a little under 2 human years ago, I wrote about a dog who helped a group of seals catch the leader of a very dangerous pack of humans who hung out in a land with lots of sand.  I’m still confused as to why humans trusted such an important task to a bunch of water dwellers.  Their aqua skills cannot be disputed, but when it comes to dry land, it's obvious a whole pack of dogs would have done a quicker job.

Talisker

Holidays ...?

In this land, humans call the few weeks at the end of each year “the holidays”.  I have to admit to being a little confused as to how these weeks earn this name as they are anything but a holiday.  Our humans put a big tree in the house covered with lots of sparkly toys which adds extra duties to my usual security detail as Tobermory thinks the toys are there for his benefit and it’s my job to stop him eating them.

It all starts when Mummy puts red and white fluffy collars with little bells on us before going for our neighborhood sniff after the sun has gone to bed.  We stand in a field in the middle of our town with lots of other similarly humiliatingly clad dogs and their humans until a big tree suddenly lights up with lots of brightly colored stars.  I don’t really understand what the fuss is about, but humans amuse easily and get very excited about it, especially the small ones.

 

And then there’s the annual photo shoot.  Mummy seems to think it’s necessary to send a picture of us sitting with an old dude who doesn’t seem to think there’s a problem with wearing a red body cover with white fluffy trim.  This year she excelled herself by making us wear antlers too.  We tried to shake them off but the human with the picture box was too quick.  The only comfort I can find in having to suffer this indignity is that to get these pictures, Mummy has to give some of the green stuff that buys dog biscuits to help dogs less fortunate than us.

 

Of course, our security duty gets dramatically increased during this time which leaves little time for writing.  All the kennels in our neighborhood have extra motorized dog carriers outside, necessitating increased vigilance when it comes to threat assessment.  On top of this, there is one day when lots of humans come and go from our kennel all afternoon.  We sit at the entrance and try to count them in and out, but even with 16 toes, 2 ears and a tail each, it can be really easy to lose track.  The only upside is that the humans leave lots of toys and treats under the tree that we get to play with the next morning.

 

At last the tree has hibernated in the garage until the next holiday season and all the toys have crawled back into their boxes under the stairs.  Finally we get a chance to relax and return life to normal.

Talisker