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Confessions of a Snuggle Puppy

Home sweet home

This is what Tanglewood is.

Tanglewood is a big green hill of sunny grass and big trees with springy moss all around them. Tanglewood is a field big enough for me to run as far as I can think to run in any one direction and still not be at the end of it. Tanglewood is six weeks of crushed grass and honeybees and rabbits and an off-leash run every single day. Tanglewood is seventy-nine high school kids on hand to take me for walks and tell me how Pretty I am, and how Good.

And this is home.

Home is air conditioning. Home is the big bed with a patch of sun smack in the middle of it. Home is eyes closed and four fuzzy paws in the air.

Spring, the sweet spring

I liked snow. But I like grass even better.

The Mama doesn't think I'd ever walked on grass before I came to live with her and the Other One. And that was in December and it was already all cold and frozen. This is much, much different.

We went for a long walk today, all the way to the back of the condo complex the long way round, on grass the whole time, around the back of the tennis courts and then into the little patch of woods and all the way through to the other side. The other side is a soccer field, and no one was there when we got there so the Mama took off my leash and said Free Dog and I took off at a dead run, intoxicated on cool wind and green smells coming out of the soft ground and sunshine on my back. She sat down on the ground and I came running back to her and jumped on her lap, and we snuggled for a second. Then we went walking back through the woods but in the other direction and made a big loop and finally ended up back home. We even crossed a little creek on a bridge made from a board, and the Mama was going to carry me if I couldn't do it but I trotted right across. I heard her telling the Other One that maybe I should do agility classes, whatever those are.

I'm not worried. Nothing bad ever happens to me here.

My social life

The Mama insists that dog meetup is good for me, but I don't really like it.

She drags me to at least three every month, and the only one I really like is the all-dachshund one, but even that isn't exactly my idea of a party. The other day we went to one and I got snapped at by a Chihuahua while the treats were being handed out, and after that I wasn't so brave anymore and went and sat on the Mama's lap. Then, the minute I decided maybe I could venture off the lap, I was attacked and humped by a Yorkshire terrier.

The Mama says the Yorkshire terrier was five months old and a third of my body weight, and I need to learn how to deal with other dogs doing doggy things. I say that I would rather be at home with the Cat, who mostly ignores me but will sometimes wrestle for a minute if I'm a pest about it. I like our wrestling matches because they always end with her licking my face.

We have another one this morning. Sigh.