A nice human friend of No. 1’s, who lives in a place called Bunny Hill, put up lots of pictures of dogs and Klingons and other animals. No. 1 decided to send her a picture of me, and which one does she choose? Me after a bath.

Now that is not my finest hour, bath time. In fact, baths should be banned. There’s no reason to be stuck in the sink, wet down, lathered up, massaged, then rinsed endlessly, just when I’ve built up a good doggy patina. Yet the humans insist on carrying out this barbaric ritual every so often (read way too often). They do give me cheese, but this is only a sop to the indignity. After the bath I’m wet and cold and I run around the house like a wild creature, so No. 1 swaddles me up in No. 2’s old bathrobe. The humans find this hilarious so they decided to take a picture of me in my reduced capacity.

Couldn’t she have sent the bunny lady a picture of me standing atop a green mountainside with the wind blowing through my luxurious fringes? Running across a flowered meadow? Bravely defending humans from a savage cougar?

No, she sends the bath picture. Oh well, at least it’s my 15 minutes of fame.

Woofs,
Willie

I don’t know why she would say that.

So I have to endure my feeties being trimmed. It’s not as bad as the nail trim, but still.

Neat feet.

The only good thing is that I get a treat at the end.

Woofs,
Willie

A home away from home they call it. Me, not so much. There’s no center console for a little dog to ride on! Not that comfortable IMO.

The first night, we stop in a place that has lots of these great big gorving cars. It has a little building and for some reason No. 2 decides he needs to howl at the moon like the coyote on the side of it.

I am not impressed.

That night we slept in a bed that’s right inside the car! That’s what makes it a gorving. It was not all that comfy.

The next day we stop for lunch beside the road. Now we’re talkin!

Mine? Mine? Mine? Mine?

Ah, the life of the open road.

Great so there's a crystal clear lake back there. Where's the sofa?

We get to a place where there are trees bigger than they have any right to grow.

Not even a Great Dane needs a tree that big.

Still, there are fun times.

Sittin' on a log with No. 1.

Sittin' with No. 2 in an interesting area.

One time they tried to leave me in the gorving in my crate. I did not approve of this, and I let them know! Vociferously! This is not MY home away from home. You must not leave me here alone!

Pretty soon No. 1 came back and said she only hoped that No. 2 would not break his neck during his hike.

No. 2 came back safe and sound. Whew!

We saw lots of sights like this one.

It’s fine as long as all that water stays over there.

So all in all, gorving is not my thing. I’m just a home dog at heart. But still there were some fine times. Any time I’m with my humans!

Woofs,
Willie

Is it time to eat now?

Woofs,
Willie

Most of it is okay, in fact good as far as a dog is concerned. We ride in the car, get out, and eat a picnic lunch. The humans let me get right up on the picnic table!

Then we go for a walk along the nice path next to the loch (which as far as I can tell means a ginourmous puddle of water).

It's a nice day for an expedition!

Humans are so slow.

It's a good path.

Being a dog of a naturally curious nature, I tiptoed out onto a sideways tree to see what these humans were doing.

I smell fish.

On the way back, No. 2 wanted to go out to this island.

Now the thing about an island is, it’s got water all the way around it. That’s why they call it an island. But the humans were sure that I wanted to go too so No. 2 rolled up his pants, picked me up, and waded out the the little island on the way to the big island.

No. 1 stayed behind ( a sensible plan, if you ask me) and I gazed at her across the divide. Then No. 2 picked me up and off we went to the big island.

We poked around a bit, it was okay, but we were not with No. 1. that is the important thing. When No. 2 finally started back, I got all excited and ran down the hill lickety-split. I was so eager to get back to No. 1 that when I reached the bank, despite never having swum in my life, I plunged into the water!

No. 1 claims her heart stopped.

My dog-paddle instincts kicked right in. I got my feeties going and I was doing a very respectable job if I do say so myself. However, that water was not cooperating. It took me to the side! So I sensibly paddled around in a little circle and headed back towards No. 2. By that time he had reached the shore and he didn’t even stop to roll up his pants, but waded right in, plucked me out of the water, and carried me to the safety of the little island.

From there the water was shallow enough that I could walk the rest of the way back to No. 1.

When I reached her she exclaimed over and over again how glad she was to get me back, not drowned. Then she said, “What a mess!”

What?

Hey, it wasn’t my idea.

Woofs,
Willie

No. 2 here: Just in case anyone’s confused, the pictures were taken at Loch Lomond in California, not in Scotland!

One of these things is not like the others.

No. 1 is making the blankies like crazy. She has her stuff all set up in the extra room upstairs, so much stuff you wouldn’t believe it. A lot of it is soft and scrunchable, which is nice for a dog. I work closely with her on all stages of making the blankies.

This is a good perch. I can see pretty well from here.

This is a good place to hang out too.

One time No. 1 packed the suitcase and went away for a few days. That was no good. When she came home I helped her unpack. She gave me this souvenir collar.

The collar's nice but don't go away any more, okay?

Here I am on a blankie that has poodles on it. I approve this blankie.

Woofs,
Willie

One of the first places they took me was to The Beach. This seems to be a big deal to them. They seemed to have hopes that I could learn to be a Water Dog, like all the deluded canines in this picture.

I could be at home on a comfy blanket, but my humans brought me here.

Well, I could give you lots of reasons why The Beach isn’t such a fun place for me, but the main ones are water, water, water, and water.

1. That’s a whooole lot of water out there. If it doesn’t fit in my water bowl, I don’t want anything to do with it.
2. This water makes noise and goes in and out and sometimes splashes up over my head. Water isn’t supposed to do that. Water is supposed to stay in the bowl.
3. This water tastes terrible.
4. If papillons were meant to go in the water, they would be laborador retrievers.

So when they take me to The Beach, I keep as far away from the water as I can. It’s fine at a distance. One good thing about The Beach is the sand. It’s soft and squishy and flat. It feels good to just run around in any direction. No. 2 likes to do that too so we run together.

No. 2 took a picture of me striking a heroic pose. He says I look like Rin Tin Tin. I’m just wondering how long I have to stand on this rock, and how soon I can get back in the car where the wind isn’t blowing.

King of the hill

After a while the humans figured out a place to go that I like a lot better. It’s really close to our home, it has a nice civilized sidewalk, it has some water but not the crazy kind, and plus there’s a park up above the water with regular grass that I can run around on. When the weather is warm we go there almost every day.

A good place to walk

For some reason the Klingons never go on these walks with us. Back where we lived before, we would all go together for walks in the woods. But here there aren’t any woods close by and there are more streets and cars. Both the Klingons and the humans seem happier if the Klingons just stay on the patio and sleep.

Seems pretty unexciting to me.

Woofs,
Willie

Those crazy Klingons have been freaking out in these first few days in our new home. The humans go looking for them and find them in the kitchen cabinets, under the sink, and even one time up in the cabinet with the dishes! What are they so nervous about? I guess they’re settling down some now.

I went with No. 1 and No. 2 to some class of a parade. There were a lot of stompy feet and I had to be quick on my feeties not to get stepped on.

Hmph! What happened to the Papillon contingent?

This is the way that things look around where we live now. That’s a lot of water down there.

Woofs,
Willie

No. 1 put one of the Klingons in her bubble in the back seat and put me in the front seat and we went for a car ride.

It was a really long car ride. My favorite place to roost on long rides is the little part of the car that goes between the front seats. It’s just papillon-sized.

Finally the car stopped and No. 1 rolled down the window. Another human walked up and guess what! It was No. 2! I did not know that he came too! This was a happy!

He brought our other car and there were the other Klingons. I jumped in to inspect the situation.

We went into a little room that had a bed in it. Now I know why you would want to give a Klingon a pill. The humans had given the one in my car a pill to make her sleepy so she wouldn’t go “Meooooowr! Meoooowrrowr!” the whole time in the car. This didn’t turn out to be the best plan, because that night when we were all trying to sleep, this Klingon was all loopy and she kept clawing No. 1’s arm and fastening her teeth in No. 1’s elbow. Finally No. 2 took the drunken Klingon off our hands and we got some shut-eye.

The next morning it was back in the car. They didn’t give her any more of the goofy pills and she did fine, just went to sleep in her bubble. Me too. I dozed on the console, just waking up enough to accept crumbs of cheese-cracker sammiches that No. 1 got for lunch and then back to dozing. If the sun got too hot in the front seat, I crawled into the back seat and slept on top of the pillow next to the Klingon.

Each night we would stop and No. 2 and the other Klingons would appear and we would go into a different little room with a bed. This went on for several days. One morning we got a slow start because that same pesky Klingon got herself lost. See, she’s goofy enough already, she didn’t need any pills to make here worse. The humans called her and called her, and they kept asking me where she was. What am I, a bloodhound? No help here. We looked up and down the halls and asked everybody, but we were still down a Klingon.

Finally No. 1 started turning the room upside down. She found a rip in the mattress. They lifted the top of the bed up and… nothing. Then No. 1 said, “I see a lump!” That dumb Klingon had crawled inside the bed and was sleeping inside the top part like it was a hammock. Oy, what a bother. We finally got out of there and weren’t sorry to see the back of it.

My favorite stop on our long, long car ride was a place that was not just a room, but a whole house.

Okay, there was some sort of a Springer spaniel there that got on my nerves, but other than that it was fun!

We went outside and there was lots of room. I could run! Run the wide open range, like a coyote!

But the next day it was back on the road. We got to one place where there was no bed. In fact there wasn’t much of anything.

No. 1 went into one of the rooms upstairs and I kept hearing her say a word that I know all too well. “No. No no no no no.” I went to see what all the fuss was about.

“Howard Johnson!” she kept moaning. I didn’t see it was as bad as all that… it’s just wavelengths, as No. 2 would say. Apparently it was supposed to be this color:

We slept on some class of a thing on the floor. The next morning I expected we would pack back into the cars. I was getting used to this life on the road, and like I said, all a dog really needs is his pack.

But… I was so surprised! We stayed!

Woofs,
Willie

[No. 2 here: We want to thank the Howdy Pardner Bed and Breakfast for showing Willie such a wonderful time when we passed through Cheyenne, Wyoming. A dog loves his wide open spaces!]

I think it all started when the humans took me for a ride in the car with the Klingons. You have to realize that Klingons and cars don’t mix. The only place they ever go in a car is to the vet. But this time, we just drove around for an hour, and the humans said something about getting them used to long car rides. Why?

After we had been driving for half an hour with no apparent decrease in yowling inside the car, No. 2 made up a song called “99 Kitties Crying and a Dog.” He sang it to the melody of “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.” It went, “99 kitties crying and a dog. 99 kitties crying. Give one a pill, make her get ill, you’ll still have 99 kitties crying and a dog.” I didn’t like this song. How did this dog get mixed up with 99 Klingons? Why did they give one a pill? How did it end? What does it mean?

Then the humans’ friends started coming over. One night it was No. 1’s friends, the ones who use sharp implements like she does.

Another friend, who has lots of dogs, came over and had lunch. This human is goofy and knows how to have fun.

Lynnie

Then we went to some more friends’ house and had dinner.

That wasn’t all that much fun. At these humans’ house, there are at least eight white boxers. Maybe it’s only three or four, but when they come at you and smell you all over and bat at you with their great clumsy paws, it seems like boxers everywhere you turn. Here’s one of them.

They all look the same from down here, trust me.

Finally, something strange started to happen in our house. The humans’ stuff started getting put into boxes.

The only benefit I can see to this development is that for the first time I can get into the frigidator! All the way into it! It should always be this way!

Woofs,
Willie