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