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