Scary dog?

I didn't think I was scary but somehow I ended up on a Halloween card!

The scary part might not be me, but the fact that my Person has replaced me with a drawing of me.  It is one thing to replace my cat brother Pico with a drawing. He doesn't do much but snooze anyway. But I am like an action figure by comparison.

Oh well, as long as she still takes me for walks and doesn't think she can get away with just popping this card into her pocket!

Scarce as hen's teeth

I m not sure what that means so I will analyze. Do hens have teeth? If I caught one in my sharp and foxy teeth I could check, but I will hazard a guess. I would say they do not have teeth. (Unlike my cat brother Adric for example, who has huge teeth.)

Anyway, what my Person tells me is that monarchs are as scarce as hen's teeth but she exaggerates, always, and in fact here is one now. The sad part is she is not exaggerating very much. These beautiful creatures, and all butterflies it seems, as well as bees, are in short supply this season. Why? Habitat loss. Drought. Chemicals that either attack insects' central nervous system called neonicotinoids and other chemicals that keep nectar plants from growing near row crops. In other words, mainly things that people do to control the world around them. Then there is a resulting thing - unintended consequences, a concept this Little Red Dog struggles with daily.

Monarchs, that lovely span of orange flutter, that is tough enough to fly VERY far, is so scarce that if you see one you can report the sighting online at Journey North.

This visitor stopped for a bit of nectar in our yard and we sat quietly and watched it. I hope we were watching something we will see many times again in the future. But it is possible that we were watching a delight, once as common as dog's teeth, that will be, someday, rarer than hen's teeth.

Dog Days

What are dog days?

Every one of my days is a dog day. Can you imagine if something terrible happened and I started having cats days? I wouldn't get anything done because I would be asleep most of the time, my meal size would be sadly petite and I would have recurring problems with hair balls.

I think maybe dog days are that middle stretch of summer. The exhilaration of spring is gone, the birds have piped down a bit because they are so busy feeding their young (or encouraging them to feed themselves), the grass is tall, the threat of frost is impossibly far off...things actually are a little dull and lazy. For me anyway. My Person still seems to be tearing around intent of some foolishness or other, my Best Friend is busy with some sort of little gizmo he stares at for hours on end. My cat brothers are, of course, asleep. What is a Red Dog to do?

My big excitement of the summer - meeting my new friends from Japan - is over. I wish they were still here, taking me for walks and patting me and filming me doing tricks. They cooked a lot and cooking is one of my big interests. You never know when a chunk of food is going to miss the spoon and fall on the floor. At any rate I miss my new buddies and wish them well now that they are thousands of miles away. I hope every now and then they remember the Little Red Dog they met in Minnesota!

BBFs from Japan

I haven't written in so long that I almost forgot how to. But I am a smart little Red Dog and I remember how to type!

I had such an exciting weekend that I wanted to tell everyone about it. I have two new Best Friends Forever and they are from Japan! They came to America to learn more English. I think they are pretty smart and speak very well. I know some words like "Sit" and "Stay" and, most importantly, 'Treats!" But these two girls outdid me.

They also know magic because they turned Adric the Bad Cat into a Nice Cat. I have never seen anything like it!

These Japanese girls made blueberry pancakes and french toast and zucchini fritters and so many wonderful things that I got to taste. And when they were done feeding me they took me for a walk on my favorite path.

I am sad they are not at my house anymore but I am so glad I met them. They are my new friends and I like friends even more than I like treats!

Thinner Ice

I don't think I am such a bad sort. I enjoy being the way I am. But today I got in trouble for it.

Me and my alleged Person were going to Red Dog Heaven, my own special dog park for one (though sometimes that Wild Whirl of Fur Tasha goes there too). To get to my special Finny Fiefdom you have go to the river and you go down the Stone Steps, and there are 100 of them (my Person counted them for me). And then if you are a good dog you wait half way down while your Person trots ahead of you down the final 50 or so steps. And when she gives you the high sign you tear down the slope, neatly avoiding the steps, and barrel off into the woods barking your fool head off. It is great fun.

But today there was another dog there already! Can you believe it?

And I sort of was unable to wait for my Person's high sign and I disobeyed and ran down the slope and after the other dog before my Person was even down the steps herself. And I almost got into a fight with the other dog because turned out that up close he was way bigger than he looked from 100 steps up a steep slope. Then my Person came after me and picked me up! I was so embarrassed. And she carried me halfway up the steps and she sputtered some terrible things including "You are a bad dog!" And then I had to behave myself for hours it felt like.

Things have been dicey for me down at the river lately. My Person says I am skating on thin ice. But I don't think she is really talking about that shiny slippery cold stuff.

A couple of weeks ago I was innocently chasing eagles and I ran out on the thin ice after a pair of them and I guess that wasn't one of my smarter moves. I didn't fall in but my Person sure screamed a lot from the shore. And last week we saw a poor dog who HAD fallen in and couldn't make it back up on the ice and by the time we got to the spot to try to help him there was no dog any more - just a hole in the ice. He skated on ice that was indeed too thin.

There has been a man living in my special park, all alone and with just a pile of blankets to keep him from freezing at night. My Person tried to find some help for him but his life seems to be on thin ice. Maybe we all are on thin ice whether we know it or not, and I don't mean the shiny slippery cold stuff either!

Anyway, I am in the dog house. Maybe tomorrow I will remember to be good and stay off the ice, thin or not.

Roll over

I don't roll over. I am too dignified.

But people think that time rolls over. They divide time into chunks and subdivide them and then they number the chucks and subchunks keep track of them and set all kind of expectations based on the chunks.

I am well aware of the cyclical nature of life - sleeping follows hunting and chasing Ollie and various meals and treats, time after time after time. Night follows day. Cooler follows hotter. But I am not so interested in larger concepts like calendars and dreaming about the past, hoping for the future. I like to be Now.

I AM now. I make my Person's life more now than she and all her yoga classes could ever hope to manage. She can stand on one leg or upside down but she has trouble being now. And so it seems to be with people. They are always elsewhere. And I am always here.

So here I am now, on a hike, seeing swans and mergansers and ducks and a muskrat who is also unaware of the calendar but just knows that now it is warm and sunny and the ice is open and there are reeds to chew. I am looking ahead, not to an ideal of how I will be if I try harder next year, but to what is hiding in those bushes over there. Some other creature very much now. After all, we really only have right now.

On thin ice

All you dogs out there who got winter coats for a holiday gift - green, plaid, hooded or otherwise - can throw them away. And be glad.

A streak of mildness has thinned the ice, greened the grass in protected places and made it possible to lounge outside in the sun if you have a built-in fur coat. Mine is getting thick and plushy and I am hoping a little Alaska salmon oil will make my fur shiny too.

Salmon, you ask? You may think that this little Red Dog feasts entirely on roasted turkey for holidays but this year I suffered both disappointment and joy, as life so often presents as close companions.

Once again I experienced the thrill of driving south in my Person's cramped car, my usual shotgun position taken by my Best Friend while I was told to remain in the back seat. Why doesn't my Best Friend ride in the back seat so I can be in front? As my Person points out, you can see just as well as from there. And his front half wouldn't drift forward between the seats like mine unaccountably does.

Anyway, I could tell by my internal GPS that we were nearing the house containing the Turkey Room. What excitement! We drove fast, I rested my outstretched chin on the stick shift, got yelled at, hung onto the back of the passenger seat breathing hard into my Best Friend's ear and tangling myself in his shoulder strap, and got yelled at some more. Finally we were There.

I ran inside! Waiting hands petted the rushing air wake as I raced by! I knew my target!

It was empty.

I ran into the kichen. There were people there, in festive garb. I had the date right.

I ran back into the Turkey Room.

Slowly the truth dawned as I sniffed the air. There was no turkey. Maybe I should have stayed home.

But no, there was a visiting sheltie at home, my erstwhile cousin, pointed head stuffed with as much fur inside as it was covered with outside, given to howling and barking. "Better off here," I thought and gamely started begging for whatever there was to be had.

And in truth, there was plenty to satisfy even one so disappointed as I. I got brunch bake morsels, bits of dropped monkey bread, kringle crumbs. I even ate some melon and blueberries.

Then we went for a hike and I nearly saved the day by flushing a turkey! I was so close and it was nearly as big as I, but it flew off before my Person could wring its neck. Not that she would have. She isn't much of a hunter.

Then I trotted on a lake. The ice was beginning to rot, just like in the spring, and the muskrat houses were softening. Maybe we could have roasted muskrat instead of turkey? I started digging. My Person, ever the kill-joy, stopped me.

Back to the house with the Turkeyless Room we went. Still no turkey. But a new wonderment was revealed. Smoked salmon, from Wasilla, Alaska. Can you even imagine such a thing? Two kinds! Salmon sticks! And a huge salmon side, all smoked and delicious. I had pieces from everyone in the room.

This was just an appetizer for the next meal. "These people are like me," I thought. "They eat to prepare to eat." So onward to mashed potatoes with cheese and bacon and tender cooked ribs. Salad for me? No way!

I went home a rounder and more experienced Little Red Dog. And I learned that there is more to holidays than turkey. There is companionship and fun, getting your ears scratched and sitting on your Best Friend's brother's shoulder so you can see out the window better to look for turkeys. And now I know there is salmon from Alaska!