Ten Things I Learned This Week

10.  I have my very own chain-link kennel like the one I had at Berkeley (only much bigger) and also a travel kennel inside that.  I have a brand-new trampoline bed like I had at the shelter, but I like to ignore that.  Whenever I get fed at night, I like to save some of my food for snacking on the next day, just in case.  I usually lie down in the shade inside the travel kennel during the day.  I'd rather be crashing around in the garden, but that's not allowed.....sigh....

9.  At night I sleep in a wire crate in the enclosed patio on a nice soft pillow.  I get one Meaty Bones biscuit whenever I go into my crate.  YUMMMM!  I like the biscuit part, but I'd rather not be in the crate.  In this house, walking around at night is not allowed.....sigh......

8.  I like going inside Janet's house because it has lots of soft furniture.  I already know all about furniture, so I must remember it from the "before" place.  I LOVE jumping on furniture and curling up---it's so comfy!!!  But here that's not allowed....sigh....

7.  Janet and I go for walks twice a day.  I wish Donyale could see me doing the wedding march everywhere I go!  I hope I can remember to do it when I go back to Bad Rap training.  We go past many fences where dogs bark at me, but I'm not allowed to bark back.  I've been very good about that, and haven't barked once!  (Well, I did once, but that was about something different.)  Some of our walks are to a park where there are children.  Children are nice to lick, but licking children at the park is not allowed.....sigh....

6.  Next door there is a young girl-dog named Lexie.  Lexie barked at me until we went for a walk together with her person, Eric.  Now that she knows who I am she doesn't bark at me so much.  Lexie is so lucky----she has her OWN BOY.  His name is Zachary.  He came into my kennel and I was allowed to lick him.  He gave me a biscuit and then he let me lick him some more.  YUMMMMM!  Boys and Meaty Bones are my new favorite combination of things to lick!  I would like to bark at Zachary when he's in his yard and invite him over to give me biscuits and be licked, but that's not allowed....sigh....

5.  Janet has a grown-up boy named Scott and an (almost) daughter-in-law Megan.  They are both very nice to lick and they give excellent scritches!  They have two dogs.  Oliver is old and grumpy (Janet told me not to take it personally that he growled at me a little when he was sitting in her lap, because she IS his favorite grandma).  He's a cocker spaniel and some other dogs mixed up.  He thinks he is very big, but he isn't.  Khepri is a pure-bred pit bull.  Apparently I'm not, because I don't look like her.  Khepri likes her ball better than anything else in the world----except squeaky toys.  After we three dogs took a nice get-aquainted-sniffing-around-the-block walk with our people, Khepri and I played ball together in the yard.  She can't see very well, but she's a great sniffer and she always found her ball, even when I ran away with it!  After pizza dinner (which I wanted to share, but that wasn't allowed.....sigh....), Janet got the Squeaky Kong that my Auntie Ferne gave me out of my toy bag so she could show it to Scott.  Khepri wanted it VERY MUCH.  Janet put it back in the bag, and said it was waaaay too exciting for Khepri.  But Khepri tried to take it out when we weren't looking.  I caught her with her WHOLE HEAD in my bag.  Then I told her it was MY bag and MY squeaky Kong that MY Auntie Ferne had given me, and that she was not to touch!!!  Then Khepri and I (but mostly me) got into trouble for being rude to each other.  Janet told me that rudeness was not allowed.....sigh.....  But Khepri and I kissed and made up, and after that Janet and Bill and I came home because we were all very tired.  From now on, taking squeaky toys to their house is not allowed....sigh.....

4.  Janet has a garden and three cats.  The cats are one reason I didn't come home with her from the shelter sooner.  They don't like it when Oliver and Khepri visit, even though two of them were kittens born in the same house where Oliver and Khepri lived!!  They like it when I sleep in the crate at night or stay in the kennel during the day because they can pretend I don't live here at all.  Janet says until I have better manners that I can only be in the garden on my leash, even inside the fence, because on my first day I broke a sprinkler head and climbed the firewood-pile and found a loose board in the fence and smooshed some plants.  I had a most excellent time, but Janet said all those fun things are not allowed....sigh....   The cat Guinness thinks it's funny to watch me walking in the garden on my leash.  Yesterday she felt brave and got very close to me.  I play-barked and tried to jump on her, and she ran away.  Janet told me barking and jumping at her kitties isn't allowed.....sigh....

3.  Janet wants me to do my potty chores in one part of the garden.  I want to do potty chores wherever I feel like it.  Sometimes I decide I'll show her---I won't do potty chores at all until I can do them wherever I want.  But then I really HAVE to go, so I give up and do them where she wants me to.  When I visited Khepri and Oliver, I got to do potty chores anywhere in their yard.  Scott walked around with a little scooper and cleaned up after me, just like Tim and Thomas did at the shelter!  It was wonderful.  I pooped and peed about a zillion times, wherever I felt like it.  Scott said that when their garden is finished, Khepri and Oliver will have to do THEIR potty chores in a special place, too. HAH!  I would like to poop and pee on the tiny lawn in Janet's back yard, but it's for dogs to roll on, so pottying on the lawn is not allowed.....sigh....

2.  Here there are not so many wonderful friendly people walking by my kennel and saying hello to me like there were at the shelter.  Sometimes I get sad because I haven't seen my shelter friends lately, and no one has come to talk to me, so I whine and yip.  Then Janet comes to see me, but she tells me that whining and yipping are not allowed.....sigh.....

1.  When I came to the shelter and they did my write-up, they said I weighed 45 lbs.  The number one thing I have learned this week from my medical records is that I really weigh 65 lbs!  Janet says this explains why I can push her over so easily when I'm licking her and she's scritching me and we're playing silly.  And that's allowed!!!!