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