Tale of a tail

I bet you think I lost my tail somewhere. But it is just a blur because it is wagging so fast!

My Person was gone on grave business for many hours and it was getting to be a long time past my morning walk in the chilly early hours. I was so happy when the door opened my tail started working overtime and kept it up for a good long while.

Someone said that it was so cold today that it was a bad day to be a little red dog. But my tail says that every day, no matter what, is a good day to be me.

Winter coats

The sun was shining but it was plenty cold as I waited for my walk today. I would have been shaking in my boots if I had any. I need little white Chewbacca feet instead of these little white socks. Or maybe I need a new winter coat.

I noticed that just as most of the trees have gotten rid of their coats (except those smart pine trees) the rest of the world is taking on new coats. The squirrels have thicker fluffy coats and they look even more fun to chase. Even my Person is thicker and fluffier. She says it is her new coat but I think it is Ice Cream. Her head seems thicker and fluffier too but I do not think it is Ice Cream - I think it is a Hat.

The river has a new coat as well - it is shiny and smooth with white scrawls across its blue gray surface. Some of the leaves the trees got rid of have stuck themselves to the river's new coat and I think they will be there until spring comes and we put our coats away (or shed them on the couch). But that is a long time from now.

Green eyed monster

Guess which one is me?

You probably can really pick out the real little red dog. The other is a sloth, at the Como Park Conservatory Rainforest. I hear it is a nice place to visit but of course I wouldn't know from personal experience. I wasn't invited along.

This brings up a sore subject, which I will lead up to.

My Best Friend was here for a few days. Now I know I am lucky to have my Person and Aunties and even my stupid Siamese cat-brothers. But I really like my Best Friend. And now my Best Friend is gone and I am a little down. I had fun playing Wrestle and Chase and Try To Grab My Squeaky Toy From Me and now there is just my Person to play with and she is a lot less fun than my Best Friend.

Now the hard part. Remember the last time I didn't write for a few days? When I was in Lock Up? That is when my Person was visiting my Best Friend and the irritating little plastic dog went along instead of me! Imagine how much fun that dog had with MY Friend. I know jealousy is a dismal character flaw but I am one jealous little red dog and sad all at the same time. So I am just going to lie here and sulk until my Person feels my pain and takes me for a restorative walk. Then I am going to sulk some more.

Thanksgiving

It is a feast day today as you can see. And a day to collect some snow on your shoulder. And for visits with friends and families. It also seems to be a day when my walk will be a little delayed because of all the food being prepared but I think today will be a tail-wagger!

Wag the dog

All of my little red dogginess is important to me but this is one of my best parts because I can talk with it. The rest of me is currently under the table but you can still tell how I am doing by watching my tail. It can wag and it can curve gracefully upward, both good signs. Or it can droop or curve frighteningly under, both bad signs. It can bristle and stand straight out and then someone is in big trouble.

What I like is going about my business and noticing that my tail is wagging - then I know I am just plain having a good day even if nothing special is going on. Maybe I just caught a wonderful smell in the grass, or chased an Ollie down the hall. Maybe I plopped down on Pico for a pillow or maybe a Person smiled at me as I trotted by. There are a lot of little things that set my tail in motion and it doesn't matter what they are. All that matters is that they happen!

Inside and out

I've been watching the birds. Today I have seen nuthatches and chickadees, cardinals and blue jays, a red bellied woodpecker and a hairy woodpecker and a downy woodpecker, a goldfinch and a house finch. And lots of sparrows. I think they are all amazing. They are so delicate and strong. They stay out in the cold and don't even wear socks. They have to do so much to stay alive and all they have to work with are two wings and a beak.

Imagine if you tied your hands or paws in back of you and tried to catch your breakfast, build your house, fend off foes, take a bath, peel your food, feed your family, all with your pointed nose. I know of some REALLY sharp-nosed types and I think they would still have a hard time of it. My Person tells me I am a remarkable little red dog, and I don't think I could do it. This made me think that life is easy for those of us who live inside and hard for those of us who live outside. And thinking this made me feel very tired so I went to bed and snuggled under the blankets with my pointed nose and then I fell asleep.

Not meeting expectations

This is my belated post from yesterday. I fell asleep before I could post this picture which symbolizes my feelings. Not enough fun!

Come with me

I've been waiting for you and I am cold. There is lots to see so let's get started. My Person is musing about the vagaries of human relationships, as usual, but I have my eye on the world around me, to wit:

The glowing gray disk of sun high above me in the flat gray sky, a sky that deepens in color as it curves around the earth;

The leafless trees whose sturdy trunks tower above. My eye travels up their branches to the filigree of countless twigs as I watch a squirrel;

The dried stems of fall wild flowers, mostly asters, that rustle and tremble above my ears. The flowers themselves have turned to small bouquets of winged seeds to scatter in the wind;

The leaf litter that stands to my knees, where I savor the scents of other animals. It is here that mice scamper and delicate butterflies have settled for winter. It is here I wish my Person would look. Under the leaves the grass is still green and small plants shelter.

Here I find a small pile of bones has been gathered by someone - the remains of a squirrel. I know my Person - she will want to pocket the delicate skull and moon about like some midwestern Hamlet but I pounce and sniff and scatter the pile and then I move on.

All things interest me but my Big Questions are What and Where and not Why. My Person accepts my wisdom today and follows me as I follow my nose. And if she needs to think about Why she can wait until we are done and I am settled in for my nap.

Energy saver setting

You probably have one on an appliance. I have one on me. Or in me. All I know is that is is a good way to be when People are busy and it is cold out or things aren't going my way. So here I am, saving energy. Tomorrow I am hoping to be solar powered.

Ordinary delights

Today was much like yesterday and much different. That is kind of a rule around here. Some routine, some wild variety. For instance I had two medium-length walks instead of one long walk. This broke up my day in an interesting way and I did not succumb to long hours of thinking but napped, trotted around stirring up dust and cats and mischief, more naps, a few nose prods to my Person's leg, occasional rewards, occasional scoldings. (Just because I sat on top of Ollie!)

Routine makes me happy though and my walks make me happiest of all. The river is always where it should be, surrounded by trees and grass and a nice path. The leaf litter is scented by the toes of squirrels and raccoons and foxes and even other dogs. The crows are always there to guard the trees against hawks and owls, while the nuthatches are pipping and the chickadees dee-ing and the cardinals calling almost like woodpeckers; they never grow tiresome no matter how often you see them.

They say variety is the spice of life but what I like the best are the ordinary everyday things I share with my Person.

Favorite Things

No one to play with, my Person busy working, left to my own devices. Trotted out my toys but no takers. I had to do some thinking to perk myself up. So like in the song, I started counting up my Favorite Things:
Birds: for taking dust baths (What a fun idea!)
Cats: when they are running away from me or sleeping for stupendous quantities of time or when THEY are bad and knock edibles from the counter
My Person: for walks and homemade food
Socks: for chewing and general carrying around
Couches: for snoozing and for spying on the neighbors because I am too short to see out the windows
Squirrels: for chase practice
Raccoon hideouts: for sniff practice
My toys: for making squeaks and for pressing into my Person's legs when I want attention
That is as far as I got before I fell asleep. Maybe tomorrow I will have more fun and won't have to resort to thinking.

Reconditioning

It has taken almost the full period of my new life here with my Person to recondition her. That is a psychological term we use in the training process. What it means in laydog's terms is that I have trained my Person to give me treats. I use the appearance of other dogs as the trigger to elicit the treat-dispensing behavior.

When I first arrived here, I would bark myself silly every time I saw a dog. My Person would try to block my view, to turn me the other way, to even cover my eyes. She made a portable fence and carried it on our walks. Finally she began to understand the correct response which was to pop a treat in my mouth.

I am proud of how she has come along. She rarely forgets to bring treats on our walks and only occassionally is so lost in her thoughts that she neglects to notice other dogs. When she does forget I make sure to reinforce the correct response by behaving very badly and barking up a storm. It is embarrassing but she has to be trained consistently and not babied. It has been a lot of hard work but as we all know, hard work usually pays off!

Family

It was a still and beautiful day today, the day after My day. The sky was pale blue and the Mississippi River near my home stretched like a broad sheet of glass, reflecting the sky and the bluffs and the trees, everything the same but just a shade lighter. Though I spent quite awhile on my own during the day, I still had a good walk and enjoyed digging for moles along my favorite walking path.

The peaceful weather so assuaged my native ambiguity about my half-brothers that I even played a bit with them. But I swear, they just are not normal. Would dogs do this? All this cuddling business is embarrassing. You know the saying about not being to able to choose family? Well, I guess we all chose each in this case but I think they got the better end of the deal. They got me!

Hurrah for me!

It's my anniversary of being adopted! My new family has been lucky to have me for two years now. Maybe I am a little lucky also, though living with three Siamese cats and a parrot and a parakeet is a little Weird.

My Person made sure that I was feted today and my Auntie gave me a neckerchief to wear until I lost it running like a Mad Thing through a swamp, hunting swamp creatures and playing with a Puggle (don't laugh, they can't help what they are). Then we went to a coffee shop and strangers fed me dog biscuits and said I was cute. Who can blame them?

The weather was perfect and the leaves crunched beneath my fast flying feet and I ate SO many treats that people downwind of me thought I had a few TOO many. It was a great day and I will finish my celebrations with a few runs around the back yard in the dark and a big nap on the couch before bedtime. Hurrah for my life!

The spirit of autumn or...

...I am an oak tree.

No animals were harmed in the creation of this fully compost-ready costume - except for right in the middle of the old dignity.

Patience

Every day I spend a certain amount of time waiting: for my Person to open the door, for the cats to forget about me so I can surprise them, for a squirrel to sneak into the yard when I am on patrol. I wait to go on walks, watching carefully for the time my Person puts on her shoes, a sure sign of going outside. And then there is that thing I love above all and that I have to wait for - my meal! Either I deserve a medal or a sympathy card. I don't know which but here I go. Waiting!

Natural order

There isn't much I can do to control how things go. I'm just a little red dog and I have to take what comes my way. Sometimes the sun shines and sometimes it doesn't and I must make the best of it. Today I was ignored hour upon hour and there wasn't much I could do except prod with my nose, whine a little and then, as they say, suck it up. At last I got my reward and the day re-ordered itself in my favor. I decided to do everyone a favor and re-order something myself.

I picked leaves as that something. For some reason, People without enough do have been putting the beautiful falling leaves - which have been outdoing themselves in their attempt to match me - into unnatural piles. I have discovered that if I run at the piles lickety-split I can, in a very short time, re-order all those leaves until you would never know they had been piled up! I am sure that once People see how I have returned their yards to their natural states, they are thrilled to share my point of view.

So remember, when you can't make big changes you can probably make small ones and make others happy at the same time.

A matter of perspective

My Person was talking about this subject with another Person. Apparently if you change your perspective you may get a different take on something that you don't understand or might want to change. So, today I tried out some new perspectives.

I sat on her lap for a while as she worked on her computer. Not only did that NOT improve my point of view, it made me pity her for not being a dog who does not own computer. Then I tried napping under the blankets for a change and that only made me hot. We went for a walk and I tried eating a small stone, just because I hadn't before. I won't again. I walked by a mail carrier without barking for a change but it doesn't seem natural. But this change of perspective suits me just fine - I understand squirrels so much better now. Maybe I'll even catch one!

Color

The newspaper said it. Dreary. And my Person read it out loud. "Dreary." Right there in the forecast.

Who would say such a thing about the weather? It is what it is, just like I am a little red dog, nothing less and nothing more. Besides, what could possibly be dreary about today? Out we went after many forceful proddings with my nose and this is what we saw: a whole world of color, not a speck of drear anywhere!


Maybe you felt dreary today but remember that if a little color will brighten your day, you just have to go and find it.

Everydog

Who is that standing out here in the cold, waiting for you to walk him? Is it your friend, your pet, your confidante, your buddy? I'll tell you who is standing out here waiting patiently and with only a few leaps at the door knob while you look for where you misplaced my harness and leash and while you email one more person and put on your jacket and finish your coffee and grab a pocketful of treats and put on your warm shoes and gloves and go back to get a handkerchief and finally get out the door. It is me. Everydog.

That is what my Person calls me anyway. At first I didn't know what she meant. I thought she couldn't tell that all dogs weren't me (she's a bit dim sometimes) and then I thought she meant I was the only dog left and I was pretty happy about that but it was clear after one walk around the neighborhood that it wasn't the case.

I think I have it figured out. I look like a Dog. An Archetypal dog. A blank slate, and everyone's image of dogdom. Everydog. People think they know me and what I am like and they want it confirmed. We are constantly stopped and questioned as I prance and my Person stomps along beside me. "What kind of dog is that?"

Must I be something? Can't I just be a little red dog out for a walk? Today we were stopped by a UPS man on his route. The familiar question once again. But I got even. I barked at his truck as he drove away. I don't think I am Everydog, but I am a dog after all.

Daylight savings

My day is all unsettled. My internal clock operates with the sun and not with that crazy little device that yells once in a blue moon when my Person has something important to attend to in the wee hours. I am not sure if we got up early or late today, and it is looking like my early supper will arrive in the dark. Why do people switch time? They are too far from nature, that is clear.

Still, it was a fair and sun-filled day until it turned into a gloomy one, and a busy day until it got a bit slow. A high point was playing soccer with Pico the Siamese. I mean that quite literally. I didn't have a ball. Just a Pico who had snuck out the door and into the yard. I think I had a better time than he did. Kick!

But a goofy mixed up day is sometimes sorted out with a good nap and butterfly chairs are the perfect place for little red dogs to sort out the day.

Friends and meetings

Do you ever spend the day thinking about what you would like to do more than actually doing it? My day was headed that way. My person seemed to be preoccupied with things other than a certain red dog and I spent too much time looking out when I should have been out.

Finally, when the sun had begun to lose its glow and the day was quieting down I donned my harness and leash and off we went. But as it turned out, and so often does when you are a little off schedule, we ran into someone we would have missed otherwise. And so I got to walk with my friend the sheltie. Shelties are quite nice if ridiculously furred.

There were enough squirrels for both of us to bark at and things to smell hidden deep in the drifts of leaves. Our People chatted and I was able to romp and charge with abandon, as far as that leash would let me. Compared to the stately sheltie I am a Wild Thing and it was fun to show off my untamed side.

All that dodging about has worked up a wild appetite and I had better go dance around the dinner dish before my Person forgets about me again.

What is wrong with this picture?

Anyone with a quick mind will notice immediately. There are large silly looking birds sitting quietly under a cypress tree. They aren't flying or squawking. They are near a dog but they don't mind because it is a little plastic dog and not a little red real dog. Think of the fun I missed. I guess I am still a little hurt by recent events. The betrayed heart is slow to heal.

However, it was a fine day anyway. First of all, I awoke in my own bed, deep in my Person's blankets. When I bounded down the hall the cats, who had been waiting like silent statues, each in his own pool of morning light, scattered like buckshot and peered down from counter tops as I ran by. I cleared the morning yard of squirrels and and ate a hearty breakfast and enjoyed my morning walk immensely. I waved my tail at the sky and I crouched in the dry oak leaves which match me almost to perfection and then I kicked them high. I broke into a graceful trot on a steep slope and was unfazed by the thunderous stomps of my loyal Person following behind me. Later in the day I barked at the substitute mail carrier and visited my Auntie and barked at her UPS man. Though I was relegated to the back yard I found treats like dead moles to occupy myself with. And so the long afternoon stretched on to a golden end and I am ready for my supper and a nap. And then dreams of tomorrow with crackling leaves and blinking sun and cats to chase and treats to eat!

There and back again

I am home! My dark week of the soul is over. (Though I have to admit everyone was very nice to me in Lock Up.) But the indignity: my Person went on vacation somewhere fun and took another dog!

She so rarely does anything that keeps me from yawning and finally she has an interesting plan and what happens? She locks me in Prison and and goes off with someone else. And he is made of plastic! He's not even a real dog like me.



They saw spiders as big as my head and fish that had been bitten in half by bigger, meaner fish. They walked in wildlife refuges and saw birds and turtles and frogs. They saw waves as tall as my Person and had ice cream every day. And I love ice cream! She even took him to an art museum and she's never done that with me.

Well, I am chagrined but I am glad my Person is home anyway. If I find where she put that little plastic dog this little Red Dog is going to show him who is boss. Next time I'm the one going on that airplane in the pocket of her backpack!