ooops!

Oh, my. Oh, dear. Have I forgotted my Christmas resolve so-ooooo soon? There I was, in my furry next diary entry, the one where Pookah hearted me, wishing fur something for ME. I'm so 'shamed!

Mommy, I don't want a nice shiny new red-red leash fur my birthday, honest! I don't need it. I gots Max's old fuzzed-out faded blue one, and it's just fine, really-really! So send that new beauuuuuutiful red-red-RED leash to a fur that hasn't gots ANY leash at all, please. Thanks! :)

I been hearted!

My furiend Pookah hearted me! He sended me a beauuuuutiful heart that led me to his diary, where he has posted his answers to 10 easy-fun questions. So cool! Now I get to answer the same questions on MY page. (This is SUCH a good way to get to know your pals.) Here's my answers, bow-wow!, and now I get to send 4 pals a p-mail or a rosette and ask them to come here to read my diary, an' then answer the questions fur themselves. What fun! Oh boy- oh boy- oh boy... :))

1. WHAT COLOR IS YOUR COLLAR? ...Red! It's red-red-red! I lo-ooooove red! It looks so good next to my white furs. I wish I had a red-red leash, too-- maybe I'll get one soon? (Hint-hint, Mommy...)

2. WHAT KIND OF FOOD DO YOU EAT? ...I eat yummy-crunchy stuff! I *think* it might be Science Diet lamb & rice small-bites? All I know fur sure is, it's yummy-crunchy stuff!

3. WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE TREATS? ...Ooooooh, my VERY favorites are Pedigree Breath Busters. Does any buddy know what is a breath buster?? I have NO idea, but they're delicious an' we get them all the time fur being *good*. Yay!!

4. DO YOU HAVE A VALENTINE? ...Yes! yes-yes-YES!!! ***YES!!!!*** I gots the bestest Valentine in the hole wurrld. She is adorable, feisty, funny Breanna-My-Belle-with-ATTITUDE, and I love-love-loooooove her with all my big heart. *Smoooooches* fur my Bree.

5. DO YOU GET TABLE SCRAPS? ...It depends on if my mommy is watching my daddy carefully or not. If she is, the answer is NO. NEVER. Table scraps make us barf! If she isn't, the answer is YES. YUM-YUM! My dad rocks!!!

6. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE TOY? ...Um. That's a tough one. I would have to say, my squeaky-squirrel. No-- it's my squeaky-duck. --No! Sorry, it's my squeaky-bone. Um... wait a minute. My *favorite* is my squeaky-giraffe! Or my squeaky-frog that only gurgles now? Oh, *I* don't know! I'm so confused.

7. WHEN IS YOUR BIRTHDAY? ...August 15, 2005. It's coming up soon! (sort of.) I wonder if I'll get a nice red-red leash fur my birthday. Hint-hint.

8. HOW MANY TIMES A DAY DO YOU GET TO EAT? ...Ohhhh, I'm a lucky dog in that department! We haves an automatic feeder in the kitchen, so I get to eat whenever I want. Me an' Max lo-ooooove this arrangement, and we have never ever over-eaten so I guess it works!

9. DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE COLOR? ...Red! red-red-red! Oh boy-oh boy, red!! If only I had a *red* leash, I'd be a happy doggy. Sighhhhhhh.

10. DO YOU HOPE ALL YOUR PALS PUT THIS IN THEIR DIARY ENTRY? Oh, yes, please, please-pawlease! This was lots of fun! :)

Sandy Paws

Sandy Paws is coming next week!

We call him Sandy Paws here because we live in the beach. I mean, ON the beach. Well, except when I dig-dig-dig and then bury myself in a nice big cool sandy hole, then I guess I'm IN the beach. Mom an' Dad feel like they live IN the beach sometimes, too... no matter how carefully we get brushed or bathed, Max and I still manage to carry sand with us when we wiggle under the bed covers at night. It's so relaxing fur my mom an' dad to climb into bed after a long, tiring day, and slide between gritty sheets!

But I gotted side-tracked with the Sandy thing... what I really wanted to write about was Christmas. It seems like every buddy I know is asking fur things. New toys! A new car! A pretty collar. A new outfit. A Christmas ham! Even, things fur a friend or a neighbor who's been having troubles.

These are all good-good things!, and I know that there is so-ooo much trouble in the world nowadays that each one of these things might be crucially impawtant. But, I have decided that GETTING --yes, even getting impawtant things-- is really not fur me. So I am not going to think any more about anything I might want, or need, or wish for. I have a warm, snug home! I get fed every day! I'm loved! How could I, really, ask fur anything else?

I have resolved that from this moment on, my focus is going to be on GIVING. I don't think it will be too hard to do this, because in my heart I believe that GIVING is really what Christmas is all about. We can give to our loved ones, so that they will know that they are remembered and cherished. We can give to folkses who don't have so much and who otherwise might not have a happy Christmas. We can give THINGS, yes, but we can also give of ourselves, from the heart, using our time and effort and energy to bring joy and comfort to someone else.

I think I can do this! My pawrents are going to help me figure out who in our community might need something. A family's house on the island burned to the ground a couple of weeks ago, and they lost everything. A contractor fell 60 feet off a roof last month, and his company has closed down until he can recover. All the oystermen in our town are suffering because there's so few oysters this year (because Georgia needed so much water from our river during the drought). Right here in this county there are kids without families... families without food... a woefully overcrowded animal shelter... elderly people with no one to care fur them. Maybe I can make some buddy's Christmas a little brighter. Maybe I can DO something fur some buddy else, really give from my soul... and do it quietly with no announcements, so that they'll never know WHO did it?

Here's my resolution: I'm not going to ASK any more, even if I'm asking fur other folks. I am simply going to DO. I want to make Christmas this year about DOING. And, I think I will actually like this, like it better than a new collar or a new toy! I think that, maybe, DOing something will turn out to be the very bestest Christmas present I could get!

**My, Oh, MY Breanna...!**

I am singing aROOOOOO,
I am happy-happy-happy,
An' I just had to tell the world!

My beauuuuutiful Breanna always-always understands me
no matter what arful things I do here at home...
She always-always makes me feel better when I mess up...
And she LOVES me, ME, just as I am, imperfect me,
trying-hard-but-still-not-quite-getting-it **ME**!!

I always know my pawrents loves me,
and of course I always feel warm and cuddly inside because of that,
But THIS is diffurent!!
This is MAGIC!!!
This is I CAN'T BREATHE I'M SO HAPPY!!!!

Oh, Breanna My Belle, you make me SI-I-I-I-I-NG!!
(An' blitz... --excuse me now, I just gotta go BLITZ!!!-- aROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!)

--just HAD to get beautiful!--

Boy, oh boy, I've been bugging my mom for DAYS now to let Max and me go to the Beauty Parlor. Finally, finally, we got to go there today! Even though I'm kind of shy around all the other doggies, I always have a ggrreat time at Miss Penelope's. We all bark and carry on while we're getting pampered from ear to toe. (and the car ride there & back is always fun too-- such rich fishy-smells, out the window!)

Anyway, THIS visit was furociously important to me-- I want to look my very bestest for Beautiful Breanna! So when we got home I made my mom take pictures of Max and me, but mostly me, all spiffed up. Usually I don't like my photos, but these I did like: I'm all poofied! In one I'm standing on the picnic table we have on our front deck, looking out at the bay. In the other, I'm inside, SMILING, at **YOU**, Bree!

But then after being so-oooo nice to me, my mom did something not-so-nice, I think. She put up a stupid-picture of me, taken a couple of months ago after I dug-dug-dug a big hole and then sat in it. --Embarrassing, or what!! Pawrents are just obnoxious sometimes, don't you think?!?

LOVE is a many splendored thing!

I never thought this could happen to me! It seemed like my life was full and complete, with so much doggie stuff to do and so much love from my furry-family & my people-family... little did I know that I was about to be bopped across my fluffy noggin by the Doggie Love Fairy!

Breanna My Belle would have knocked my socks off, except that I don't seem to have any. She's GORGEOUS!!!!!! Her beautiful eyes make my legs turn into wet grass. Just one look at her photo page and I was a goner. I'm beside myself! All I can do is race in circles and bark. Max thinks I have left my mind behind somewhere, and I guess I probably have. Woof-woof!

HOT DIGGETY DOG!!

Dog Day Afternoon

Oooh, this afternoon we did SO many things!

First I got to help take ALL the garbage out (one of my favoritest jobs 'cause it all smells so GOOD!). I played with Max and Daddy outside on the grass for a long, long time, and then we got to play on the deck. We got a great nap in, and then-- guess what!-- we went to the BEACH!! Not our little beach in front of the house that Hurry Cane Gustav stole our sand from, but across the big bridge, in the TRUCK!!!, to the BIG beach. (I had my nose out the window the whole way!) At the beach Max ran-ran-ran, and I dig-dig-digged, and we raced in the little waves and got ALL wet and sandy and had a roll-around GREAT time!

Okay, so then-- you can guess what we had to do when we got home... the DREADED B-A-T-H! But it was okay, really, we both survived it and I feel so CLEAN now! Did you see the new photo of me? Mom took it right after the bath, before I got completely dry & brushed.

Now I'm ready for a nice T-R-E-A-T (in case you don't know, that spells "treat"! --they think I'm not as smart as I really am), and then some cuddles. We're all going to sleep well tonight!

Furtastic Day!

WHAT a great way to start off my new diary: my day today was tops! Well, I know my parents had to be gone all day in Tallahassee, but they would have taken us if it wasn't so-o-o-oo HOT. I got to stay here all day with my BEST FRIEND: my Big Brother Max!

Ms. Sable Kitty stayed with us, too-- and sometimes, I have to admit, she can be kind of scary (she leaps out from behind corners at me, for no reason at all!)-- but after a while she got tired of being with us and she disappeared (I have NO idea how she gets in and out of the house whenever she wants-- she must be some kind of a genius!), and then she showed up sitting outside the living room windows on the front deck, twirling her whiskers and laughing at us. Max didn't like this at all!!! He kept on barking at her (or was he barking at the cars that went by? I'm not sure...). I thought she was funny.

I curled up next to Max on top of the living room couch, thinking I'd get a little cat-nap. (Can I say that? --or is it not PC??) After a while, because Max kept on barking, I thought maybe I should bark too-- like, maybe I was MISSING something. So every time he barked, I barked too. Pretty soon we were just barking, and barking (and with NO parents here to tell us to be quiet, it was terrific!)... then Max got really excited and had one of his Max-Attacks, where he just starts running all over the house at top speed, like crazy! Of course I had to do the same, and pretty soon were we jumping all around on mom & dad's bed, pushing pillows onto the floor and pulling on each others' ears. It took quite a while to get calmed back down again!

We didn't do TOO much damage to the house-- only a few things knocked off the living room coffee table, a couple of baskets overturned, and the dining room carpet askew-- so it was all okay. But WOW, this was a fun day!! I can't wait for my parents to be gone all day again! (well, yes, I can...)

Max is mumbling something about tummy rubs, so I gotta go & investigate! I'll write more later, promise!!