Holiday?

Another Holiday Season over.  I’ve been caring for humans for 7 years and I still can’t work out where the “Holiday” aspect comes in.  The whole thing seems to be hard work for both humans and their security detail.

The Season starts with Thanksgiving.  We spent it with members of Mummy’s pack at her cousin’s kennel.  It’s near where we live at the top of a big hill with no fences around it.  You may think this sounds like fun, but with a large gathering of humans in one place, there are serious security aspects to be considered.  Axl and Izzy who are in charge of security at the property seemed to be unconcerned, but the other three of us felt that extra vigilance was necessary to ensure the safety of our humans.  Luckily the kennel has a special security detail entrance, so we could go out through it, do a quick circuit of the perimeter, back in and check that nothing threatening had snuck in while we were out, quick check of the inside and then back out to check the perimeter again …..  The humans just made human kibble while drinking falling over juice, oblivious of all the hard work we were putting in.

Don’t think this went unrewarded.  After a couple of hours of patrolling, Axl and Izzy’s Daddy took a very large chicken out of a big green egg that lives outside their kennel.  There was lots of big chicken juice that he put in bowls for us along with all the bits that the humans don’t like to eat.  Personally I think this is a mistake on their part because they’re the tastiest parts.

The following month has been a haze of watching humans overeat.  Christmas Eve was particularly stressful.  A large number of humans stopped by our kennel to eat large cheeses with blue lines in them and eat little pies filled with fruit while they drank hot falling over juice.  It’s necessary to count every human in and count them out to check none have gone missing and then of course, they’re really messy and drop food all the time so we have to clear up after them.

I’m done.  Just let me sleep for a couple of weeks.  The humans can clean their own plates up for a while.

Talisker

Don't Spare the Hair

At the time of year when the sun doesn’t keep us warm because it goes to bed early, in the evening, our humans burn dead trees in the hole in the wall with fire.  It’s a particularly cozy place to take a nap.

In the last cold season, there were lots of days when our humans didn’t burn dead trees.  Mummy said it was because it was a Spare the Hair day.  I told her that she should fix that because my hair doesn’t need sparing.  It likes being warm.  I guess she must have found the right humans to talk to about it because so far in this cold season, my hair has not been spared once.

Talisker

Bad Clocks

For the last 2 days, Daddy has been giving us dinner an hour later than usual.  I tried gently pawing him as a reminder but he says it’s not his fault.  The clocks decided on Saturday night to change our feeding time.  These are obviously bad clocks who prey on trusting humans, because the one in my tummy doesn’t think our dinner time has changed.

Talisker

Dogs Don't Drive

Daddy just got a new motorized dog carrier … well … new to him.  I accidentally broke the last one.   I didn’t mean to but I really wanted to be in the front with Daddy.  I didn’t know that motorized dog carriers take commands from the circle in the front and jumping on it is not a good idea.

Tobermory

This is a cautionary tale for those of you out there who have your dogs roaming freely in your car.  We have always had restraints in one of our cars as it’s a convertible for the safety of the dogs, but never thought to have them in our SUV.  Luckily, no humans or dogs were injured in this accident as we were moving slowly on a private road, but had it been on a freeway, it would have been a different story.  We now have restraints in the SUV too for all of our safety.

Mummy

Human Training Standards

I’m Dougal.  I’m Chief of Security at the kennel of Talisker’s and Tobermory’s Mummy’s parents.  She’s visiting us this week along with her litter mate and her human puppies.  They’ve been spending every day chasing lots of other human puppies in floating human carriers.  Their Chief of Security, Bone has come too to make sure that they get properly dried off and warmed up at the end of the day.

I think Talisker and Tobermory have been a little lax in training their humans.  My humans are extremely obedient in responding to begging, especially my Daddy.  All I have to do is look at him and he gives me food.  It doesn’t matter where we are.  It even works when they are sitting down at the table to eat.  I tried this with Talisker and Tobermory’s Mummy, but nothing.  I increased the level of stare and even brought Bone in to help, but still nothing.  I consider begging to be one of the most important things to teach humans to respond to, but maybe in California dogs have different standards from those in England.

Dougal

In the Dog House

Last weekend Daddy bent Mummy’s motorized dog carrier. We thought she’d growl at him like she does when we do bad things so we hid because she’s really scary when she growls. Instead she went very quiet and said she was going to put Daddy in a dog house.  Since we live in the same kennel as our humans, this must be a dog house and since Daddy is still here, I assume Mummy must be talking about this one.  It has particularly comfy beds and sofas so I don’t understand why putting Daddy in this dog house is much of a punishment.

Talisker

The Bird that Mocks

There’s a very loud bird that starts to scream outside our kennel late at night just as we are trying to go to sleep.  Mummy says it’s mocking us.  Personally, I think it’s jealous.  After all, it’s the one outside sitting in a tree while we’re inside, curled up on our nice comfy beds.

Talisker

The Great Escape

Our humans have been restricting our adventures just lately.  All we do is go on a short neighborhood sniff after the sun has gone to bed.  They say it’s too hot outside which we really don’t understand because it looks fine to us from the inside.

Today a human stopped by to talk to the small creatures living under our garden about ceasing their construction of little mountains.  After he left, we went outside to inspect them and much to my delight spotted an open gate.  When your humans have been depriving you of adventures, it stands to reason that when the opportunity presents itself, it’s only reasonable to take yourself on one.  Mummy was busy with her writing box so I thought it was safe to leave her unwatched for a little while.

Tobermory almost immediately fell afoul of the number one rule of adventures; avoid distractions.  He found a ball and was so enthralled by it that he didn’t notice the group of human puppies approaching who suspected that he was on an unauthorized adventure so took him straight back to our kennel.  He of course refuses to return the ball.  He says that since he found it, it’s his.

I kept my focus and continued on my mission.  I was beginning to get lost so stopped to ask some friendly looking female human puppies for directions.  Despite my protestations, one insisted on using her talking box to call the number on my tag.  I wanted to continue on my adventure, but they tricked me with cuddles and treats until Mummy arrived in her motorized dog carrier.

Although it pains me to say it, I think our humans may have been correct in restricting our adventures.  I was starting to get really quite hot and thirsty and have to admit to being more than a little grateful for the ride home.

Talisker

Taking Care of Mummy

Talisker told me that yesterday was a day when we are supposed to take particularly good care of our Mummies.  I don’t think we can ever be accused of not taking good care of ours.  We help keep her warm when she’s under her bird fur, we lick the water off her legs when she comes out of the big glass washing box and when Daddy’s not in our kennel, we bark at everything that passes by, just to make sure that everyone knows that she has a diligent protection detail.

Talisker is the Head of Security around here, so if he says to give Mummy extra special treatment, that’s what we’ll do.  I did suggest that if all dogs have to do this, maybe some of our friends could join us with theirs and take them to Testarossa Winery since all our Mummies like falling over juice.  We enjoy their crackers too.

Olive said she’d bring her Mummy, along with some friends we met the night before, Chewy and Mushu.  Chewy’s relatives take care of sheep in a land with really big rabbits with enormous back legs that carry their babies around in pockets, and Mushu’s come for a place called Bean Town which seems a little strange since he says he doesn’t like beans.  They were visiting with their Mummy from San Francisco and didn’t know where to take her around here so were grateful for the invitation to join us.  Of course, when they discovered the quality of the crackers, they were even more appreciative.

Tobermory

California Girls

It was my birthday on Sunday.  I turned 7 human years.  That’s around 50 in dog years.  I didn’t want to celebrate but Tobermory insisted on organizing a party for me.  He reminded me of the story I told him about Daddy’s 50^th birthday party.  All his friends and litter mates came from far away places to drink falling over juice and wriggle around in the garden while a group of howling humans, pulled strings attached to pieces of wood and hit big round boxes with sticks.

I think Tobermory’s offer to arrange a party may have been a little self-serving.   We both like Mummy’s cake made from orange vegetables, bee juice and squashed nuts topped with cheese from small human kennels, however the guest list was a little suspect.  He says he invited my BFF, Truman, but he was busy taking care of his little sister and his boy because their humans were out of town.  Now, I’m not saying that Tobermory is some kind of lothario, but his answer to this was to fill our garden with his girl-friends.

I don’t want you to think that I’m a cradle snatcher, but there was one girl, Sierra who I’ve never really spoken with much.   I’ve known her since she was puppy and she really has grown into quite an exceptional young bitch, and the legs …..  She says her mother is a free spirit so really doesn’t know who her father is. We talked for a long time.  She has a lot of wisdom for her age and can do some really cool tricks, like rolling over.

I’ve usually found girls closer to my age who are fish retrievers like me to be more to my taste, but I think I need to broaden my horizons to include long haired, free spirited California hippy chicks.

Talisker

Iced Wings

I have a sore “wing”.  Every evening while I hold the sofa down, Daddy wraps two big bags of ice in the bits of cloth that the humans use to take water off plates.  He puts one behind his back and Mummy loops the other around my “wing”.   It feels really good and a lot of the hurty stuff goes away which means I have way more fun when I go out for our daily sniff.

 

This wing icing feels so good that I thought I should check on Mummy’s writing box to see if anyone else knows about this.  My research found that flying metal tubes get their wings iced too, only they don’t like it much and refuse to fly until all the ice is gone.  I think the problem is that the ice is put directly onto their wings.  I wouldn’t like that much either.  If the humans taking care of the flying metal tubes wrapped the ice up in bits of cloth, not only would the flying metal tubes like it, but they might be able to fly better too.

Talisker

Whisky Dog Adventures Illustrated - The Swim Fur Edition

Brando, Fur Mate of the month on the Swim Fur Dogwalk and demonstrating good duck retrieval form.

Tobermory asks for a few tips before taking the duck retrieval plunge himself while Brando and Talisker shout encouragement from the sidelines.

Tobermory returns the favor by enlisting Talisker's help to introduce Brando to the art of synchronized frisbee swimming.

Talisker finishes the show, modeling the season's Wet Fur look.

 Photography & Captioning by Mummy