St. Patrick's Day 2016

Wait!

Do I smell...

Irish soda bread?
corned beef?
cabbage?
potatoes?

 Happy St. Patrick's Day to all my friends!

A Play Date At Ralphie's

Look at me!

I'm a wreck!  I'm a mess!  I'm a shadow of my former self!  And why?  Because I'm exhausted from last Saturday.  Allow me to explain.

On Saturday morning, Sister surprised me by asking Ralphie's mom if he was available for a play date and, as luck would have it, he was.  I don't need to tell my loyal readers how happy I was to hear this.  I haven't seen my pal Ralphie for nearly two years now!  He and I always have fun when we get together...we take turns leaning on people, we check out the now defunct pizza tree, and we make dog angels in the snow.  So anyway, an hour later, Ma, Sister, and I set out to Ralphie's house (and yes, I pretty much dragged Sister the whole two blocks).  Little did I know that there was an even bigger surprise waiting for me at Ralphie's house.

Twins (Archie On The Left)

I was greeted at Ralphie's front gate by a dog that was not Ralphie.  Turns out, the nine year old Golden Retriever that was barking at me from inside the gate was Archie, Ralphie's house guest.  Right away, I came to the conclusion that Archie was cool.  First of all, he's a Golden.  Second, he bears a striking resemblance to yours truly.  Yeah, I found out later that he's a bit of a people hog (he kept inserting himself between me and the humans who were obviously all hanging around to exclusively pet me), but I was okay with it because, ultimately, there were enough humans to go around.  

L to R:  Me, Ralphie, & Archie

So anyway, Archie and I ran around the front yard for a while which was an awful lot of fun.  Then Ralphie's mom went inside to get Ralphie.  That's when the fun really started.  Ralphie, Archie, and I took turns getting drinks from the water bowl (I kept sticking my foot in the bowl...why? why not!?), trampling the lone crocus growing in Ralphie's front yard, and begging for attention.

L to R:  Archie, Me, Ralphie

After an hour, Ma and Sister told me that it was time to go home.  I hated to go, but I had to admit that I was kind of tired (and yes, Sister was quick to point out that I was the youngest in the pack and the first to tucker out).  I said goodbye to everyone (Ralphie took an extra turn saying goodbye to Sister) and walked home (all the while wishing that we drove the two blocks rather than walked).

Totally exhausted from my play date, I decided that I'd devote the rest of the day to napping.  Unfortunately, Ma didn't get the memo.  No, she decided that that Saturday afternoon was the perfect time to give me a bath.  Truth be told, I knew that a bath was eventually coming my way--my family had been threatening me with one since January--but I didn't think they'd take advantage of my worn out state to tackle me, clean my ears, and hose me down in the driveway (they didn't even have the decency to take me to the doggy spa!).

Needless to say, I was quite annoyed by this and decided to voice my displeasure the only way I knew how:

Is There A Zoologist In The House?

It was Saturday afternoon and I was spending the weekend out east with Ma and Pa.  Because I knew that there was a nice coating of icy snow on the grass for me to rub my snout in, I jumped at the opportunity to go outside when Ma made the suggestion that I join her outside.

After I finished rubbing my snout in the icy snow, I decided to check out what Ma was doing.  You see, Ma requires a certain level of supervision when she's outside in the yard.  She's always raking up leaves or digging holes which means that there are always garden tools or plants that need to be carried away by yours truly.  So I surveyed the yard and located Ma.  She was raking up leaves that had gathered in the basement doorway.  Wasting no time, I scurried over to her side and started snuffling my way through the pile of leaves she had already collected.

Truth be told, I was searching the pile of leaves for a nice stick to chew on.  Never did I ever expect to find what I found and when I did, I did the only thing I could:  I picked it up in my mouth.

I had found a small, furry, and very much deceased creature.

Now, I've heard Pa, Ma, and Sister argue about it before:  What is the difference between a field mouse, a mole, and a vole?  Well, I certainly didn't know, but I did know that I had one of them in my mouth (there was, after all, no zoologist present at the time of death).  I also knew that whatever it was it didn't taste particularly good.  But even though it didn't taste good didn't mean that I would simply walk away from it.  No, I had to get Ma's attention so she could take it away from me (that's one of the top three purposes of the human race, isn't it?  To buy soft comfy furniture for me to sleep on, open the food tin so I can eat my supper, and take disgusting things out of my mouth).

I've learned over the years that my family is most suspicious of me when I'm quiet--that that's when they come looking for me expecting me to be up to no good.  So I, with the mouse/mole/vole still in my mouth, wandered about ten feet away from Ma and lay down in the grass.  I spit the mouse/mole/vole out on the grass in front of me.  Then I waited.

Ma was uncharacteristically oblivious to my quietness, but I was patient.  I lay there quietly with the late mouse/mole/vole before me trying not to look at it for fear of losing my most recent meal.  Ma, meanwhile, raked away.

Eventually, after what felt like forever, Ma noticed that I was acting weird.  I wasn't nosing through her leaf piles any more.  I wasn't snuffling through the bushes.  Something was amiss.

Ma turned to me and I immediately gave her my "yeah, I've got something.  Aren't you gonna come and take it away from me already?" look.  That message she got loud and clear.  Quickly, she advanced on me.

Now, just as I wasn't going to leave the mouse/mole/vole behind just because it didn't taste good, I certainly wasn't going to give up the mouse/mole/vole to Ma without at least putting up a little fight.  As Ma approached me, I summed up my strength, wished I was able to pinch my nose, and picked up the mouse/mole/vole.

Ma started shouting "drop it" and reached for my collar to prevent me from running off.  Ever the obedient dog (and more than happy to get rid of my icky tasting prize), I immediately spit out the mouse/mole/vole.

Ma obviously wasn't expecting me to have found a small, furry, and very much deceased creature either.

Standing between me and the mouse/mole/vole, Ma started frantically motioning to Pa (who was inside the house watching the events unfold), desperate to get his attention so that he could collect the recently departed animal and dispose of him before I snatched him up again.  Pa eventually came and collected the mouse/mole/vole and while he and Ma once again debated the difference between mice, moles, and voles, I considered my next step.

I decided to circle back to where I had initially found the mouse/mole/vole in hopes that I would find something just as exciting (though hopefully a whole lot tastier).  For fifteen minutes Ma watched as I circled from the spot the mouse/mole/vole had departed this world, to the pile of leaves I had plucked him from, to the spot that Ma and Pa had taken him away from me, but to no avail.  I never found anything else.

Once all the leaves were picked up, Pa, Ma, and I went inside.  I was exhausted from my adventure and was more than happy to go take a nap, but Ma was obsessing about the fact that I had been carrying around a dead mouse/mole/vole in my mouth.  Hoping to get the nasty taste out of my mouth, Ma gave me a cookie.  Not wishing to insult her, I ate it.  Then Ma brought me my water bowl to wash down any lingering taste.  Obediently, I drank.  But then Ma, taking advantage of my drooly jowls and dead set on erasing all trace of the mouse/mole/vole from my lips, grabbed a wad of paper towels and started wiping my mouth which I really hated.

It's been over twenty four hours since I picked up that mouse/mole/vole and I'm still being harassed about my germy jowls.  I'm thinking that I'm going to have to break my usual rule of not being a kissy dog and give someone in my family a big wet kiss across the nose.  I, for one, can't wait to see that person's face.

Snout Rubbing

It snowed yesterday.  Sure, it wasn't a lot and it did not result in me getting the opportunity to "dig, dig, dig" in a snow bank or disembowel a snowman, but, nevertheless, it did snow.  And do you know what?  I'm okay with it only snowing a little bit.  Sometimes, I think, a little snow is better than a whole lot of snow.

Allow me to explain.

One of my favorite activities (behind eating, begging for food that other people are eating, scrounging for food, and eating items that may or may not be edible) is rubbing my snout.  I love rubbing my snout.  I do it all the time: after I eat (usually on the side of the couch), when I wake up in the middle of the night (usually in Pa and Ma's bedroom while they are sleeping), when I find something good and smelly in the backyard that needs rolling in, and when the moment just feels right. But rolling in an inch or so of icy snow?  That's by far the best of all! 

People might not realize this, but snout rubbing is a very intricate process.  First, I repeatedly plow my head into the ground while keeping my butt high up in the air.  Next, with my head down, I push forward with my back legs until I stretch so far that my back end comes crashing to the ground with a thud (this is especially satisfying at three o'clock in the morning when I crash into Pa's closet door resulting in an even louder thud).  Then I start howling and barking loudly until I get up, shake, and start the process over again.

So anyway, rolling in an inch or so of icy snow is wonderful.  Think about it:  cool snow in your fur and abrasive ice rubbing against the side of your face. What else could a devilishly handsome pup want?  It's like a spa treatment!

But there is a side effect to snout rubbing.  All of my whiskers are now bent and pointing in odd directions.  This doesn't bother me--I think bent whiskers add a certain ruggedness to my appearance--but Ma and Sister think that it cuts into my handsomeness.  They're always lamenting how my whiskers had just turned the same color (when I was a pup, each whisker was white, brown, and gray in color) and now they're all bent and broken.

What do they know?