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