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Life After The Kennel

My very own yard...

Miracles do happen.

Mom & Dad went and bought a house for me just like Mom said she would. She said I needed a yard where I didn't have to be on a leash just to go outside to do my own business and we'd been renting long enough so almost the day she got me she started looking to buy me a house with a yard.

WELL, it arrived this week and what a different life this is for me. At first I had no idea what they expected of me when they let me out. I just sort a stood there till they shoo'd me down the deck steps. Mom says I need to learn to get a little further out to the yard before I go on and relieve myself but I figure that's the easiest way for Dad to spot my presents. How can he miss if I put them right there at tge bottom of the stairs. They just don't appreciate my intelligence yet I can see.

Anyway, the yard is plenty big for me cause I don't run all that much, just if I get really excited like if Dad's been gone all day then I have a place to run and show how happy I am he's home. And I have all kinds of bushes I can go outside and hug. I like to squirm up against them until all the leaves touch my back and sometimes I hide under them but Mom says I don't hide too well cause I don't turn around and she always finds my tail hanging out. Whoops. What's a dog to do? I figure if I can't see them, they can't see me, but she says different. She must be right on this one cause she always does find me. I hear her sometimes saying "look at that bush with the skinny tail... oh wait, it's our little tree-hugger again..."

The one thing that is still confusing me about my yard is all the doors. There's two of them big glass sliding ones on different sides of the house, and Mom keeps telling me it's not a circuit and I don't have to go out one and in the other but I keep on asking to go out one way and then run around the other one to get let in. This is especially fun if there's lots of people around cause nobody knows if I'm in or out and I just keep getting one to let me out and another one to let me in the other way. ::: snicker ::: Loads of fun that one.

But there's a third door that's even funner. This one goes down (they call it the cellar) and comes right back up through the middle of the house! That's a fun circuit when it's open too. They mostly keep it closed though cause of all those cats!

I tricked Mom and got loose yesterday (hehe) and took Daddy for a tour of the neighbor's yard. I made him follow me right through the back and around to the front. I like them circles a lot. Mom was laughing so hard she said "Here comes Trotsy and then here comes Daddy trotting right along behind him", cracked her right up. See I'm real fast when I want to be so trotting is like a slow walk for me but I can do it real fast. So what I do is go just fast enough to give my Dad a good little workout trying to catch me but I stay just out of reach. It's fun.

Mom says my ears look like Tramp's ears in that Disney movie so when I trot along my ears bounce. She tells me all the time I have the cutest ears in the world. She especially likes when I'm eating cause they fall down straight out the sides of my head and she says then I look like Yoda or something. I don't know who that is but I get the impression it's better to look like Tramp.

Well that's enough yammering for an early morning. I'm going back to bed. ::: yawn ::::

I got a bath.

Well it had to happen sooner or later. She's been threatening almost since I first met her. "Willy, you smell like you haven't had a bath in years!" and she was right too. It's been at least four years since I had a bath cause I wouldn't let anyone touch me, 'member? They tried to get me one at the shelter once but that didn't work out too well. Some stranger put me on one of those things where they lock you to a stake and I flipped. Literally! Well none of that happened with my new family. She just kept on threatening me everytime she'd be petting me a little more than I was used to. "Yep", she'd say, "I think you're almost ready for that bath..." Well this weekend she got out a bucket and a cup and some sudsy stuff and rubbed it on my back and I'm telling you I didn't know a dog had so much fur just hanging on for no reason. I left a pile of little short furs would make any hound dog proud. She says I look all two-toney now cause I'm clean on only my back but not the rest of me. She says we're doing it again on Saturday and every Saturday till I smell like a petunia. Not sure I'm liking the smell of that but I admit it did feel kinda nice to get that warm water poured on me slow and petted with the soap and all. We'll see what happens next Saturday. She sure is persistent this lady. But she's not all bad. I think I kinda like her, just don't tell. Woof!

It's Adoption Day!

I'm getting a forever home!

I've been at this house "on foster" for two weeks now and the lady said we're going to the shelter today to adopt me official! Woof Woof!! I guess that means I can call her mom now. ::: tail wag :::

I'm going to the shelter too so that everyone there can see how great I'm doing and not worry about me any. Since I was there so long I got to know and like a lot of the peoples. They were sad but happy when I went to foster care. Sad only because they said I'm a good dog and they would miss me some.

They were right. I am a good dog. I never chased the cats since I got here and I never did anything on the floor when the people are home to let me out to the yard. I don't beg (much) at the table either and I always help my new mom when she's cooking to make sure she gets it right (and saves a treat for me). Mostly I just sleep on that nice fluffy bed in the room with the big windows and soak up the sunshine and that keeps me out of trouble.

So I will visit the shelter today and maybe even let them pet me or at least let my new mom pet me all the way down on my back which I never allowed anyone to do before. They will like that and then they'll know I am being taken good care of like they hoped for me.