These days I’m more of a lap dog in the wintertime… you know, when the weather is chillier. Laps are warm so they’re very good at that time of year.
One thing I like to do in the cooler weather is to help No. 2 read the newspaper every morning.
Anything exciting?
Slow news day.
Woofs,
Willie
Edited: July 20th, 2011
No. 1 makes books, did you know that? A friend of hers makes books too. Here’s one of hers.
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And can you believe it, this friend lives with a papillon too? Here we are all together.
 The red-haired beauty is Wuli. |
No. 1 got ahold of this book and saw that her friend had made a ‘barkmulke’ for Wuli. So of course she decided to make one for me too.
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 The hat's okay but did I really have to wake up out of a nap for this? |
Woofs,
Willie
Edited: July 18th, 2011
Okay, today I’ll tell you about That Place.
I think every dog has a place like this. I see Klingons there too. We used to go only once or twice a year, but now it seems like it’s more often. I don’t really appreciate it. When our car turns onto the street where That Place is located, I start to get a little nervous.
Here I am following No. 1 through the front door. Note that my tail is down.
No waggy tails for visits to That Place.
The first thing they have you do is get on a shiny cold metal thing. Who wants to stand on a shiny cold metal thing with bare feet? Not me. Still, they only make me do it for a few seconds. Then they say something like, “6.3 pounds,” and I can get back on the floor.
Next we go back to a little room with another shiny cold metal thing for a table. A nice human with a concerned face comes in. No. 1 or No. 2 puts me up on the table, and then the Examination begins.
I don’t have any pictures of this part, but the nice human with the concerned face puts a shiny round metal thing on my chest and listens. Then she puts a plastic thing in my ear and looks. Then she tries to pull back my lips and look at my teethies. Oooh, I do not approve of that whatsoever. I squirm and thrash! Nobody looks at my teethies!
And then the worst happens. She starts putting things in places where I didn’t even know I had places. At this point I’m just praying for it to be over soon. Usually it is, after just a few minutes.
Sometimes, though, No. 1 and No. 2 leave me there for a longer time. This part is really weird. The That Place humans take me back into another room, give me a little pin prick that I can barely feel … and then suddenly I wake up and it’s later! My mouth feels tingly, and my teeth feel really smooth and clean. And then I hear my humans’ voices out in the lobby. Another nice human carries me through the door, and there are No. 1 and No. 2! I start squirming again, only this time it’s a good squirm. It’s the “I get to go home!” jig.
MUCH better. One of the good things about being a little dog is that I can sit on the counter, above the hoi polloi, while No. 2 talks with the humans behind the counter.
This is my view.
Those crunchy biscuits in the dish are really good. I get to take one home with me!
As you can see, they really try hard to make us feel comfortable. I’ve seen lots of other animals in the waiting room at That Place. The ones coming in often look a bit under the weather, and the ones going home usually look happy and better.
So That Place is really not a bad place. It’s just a place that I would really rather not be.
Woofs,
Willie
No. 2 here: Many thanks to Dr. Kawano at Harbor Vet, for all her care for Willie over the years.
Edited: July 16th, 2011
Remember back when I was young pup, and a tree came into the house? Well, I’m glad to tell you that it happened again! And again. And again …
Now, instead of being a surprise, it’s a tradition. And we dogs are very big on tradition!
Every year, around the time that the nights start getting a lot longer than the days, the same things happen. First a tree comes into the living room. The humans hang all sorts of stuff on it.
Here are three of the humans’ favorite hang-up things.
See how they look just like our Klingons?
But naturally this is the very best one.
It's a good ornament.
Then the stockings go up. We don’t have a fireplace any more in this warm place, but the chest of drawers works pretty well.
One for No. 1, one for me, and one for No 2.
The Klingons get into the holiday spirit, too, in a grinchy sort of way. They have some very strange ideas about how to celebrate. For example, they like to pull the decorations off the lower branches of the tree. And they like to drink the water from the bowl the tree sits in. “Mmmm! Yum! I’ve looked forward all year to tree-sap flavored water!”
Here are the calicoes doing their version of making merry.
Ho. Ho. Ho. Whatever.
Gradually, over the course of two or three weeks, presents start to pile up under the tree, but the stockings always stay empty. And then, one night while we are all asleep, something magical occurs! We get up in the morning, and the stockings are full of presents! It’s the big day!
The first order of business (before breakfast, and before the humans even get dressed) is to open the stockings. Here I demonstrate the proper technique:
I'm helping.
My stocking is the best, with lots of things that dogs appreciate, but No. 2’s is usually pretty good, too. It has a lot of sweet things in it. No. 1’s usually doesn’t have anything to eat, except shortbread cookies in honor of her Scottish grandma. It does usually have pieces of fabric for her to make the blankies with. She appreciates that.
Then we have breakfast. and then, it’s time for the presents under the tree!
When we were all much younger, the Klingons used to open their presents, nice smelly Klingon-nip toys, and then proceed to flop on their sides and act goofy for awhile. Now, though, they don’t even act like they’re interested, and I usually have to open their presents for them. I tear into the paper with my teethies and rip with my paws until I have gotten the thing uncovered. Klingon-nip is okay, but it’s no substitute for a nice yummy dog treat. That’s what’s in MY present!
After we unwrap the presents, No. 1 starts making a glorious Christmas feast! And when we sit down at the table, that’s the best part of the day, because as we all know, Christmas is all about eating.
I'll have a drumstick. And a wing. And a big hunka white meat...
Woofs,
Willie
Edited: July 11th, 2011
You met Bootsie. Somebody said Bootsie looked like a lamb. He’s not a lamb, he’s a poodle.
Bootsie and the whole gang
I’ll show you each one of my stuffed toys.
Ducky
This is a good one. A duck with bunny slippers! Those dangly slippers are so much fun to grab with your teethies and fling around. I don’t know what happened to the eyes of one bunny.
Flopsy
Flopsy is some class of a rabbit and she stays on our bed most of the time. She’s jolly good fun to run after and drag around.
Red lion
This lion was the very first toy that No. 1 ever got me. So many arms and legs, and so chewy!
Mr. Bun
Mr. Bun, Mr. Bun! Oh, the good times we’ve had. Of all the bunnies, you’re the most fun to beat up.
Mau-Mau
No. 1 brought this little guy home from a place called the Magic Kingdom. Mau-Mau is good for biting, shaking ferociously, and tossing in the air. He’s been decapitated twice and had his head sewn back on by No. 1.
Pinky
Pinky has dangly feet, which is very good. He lost an ear in an unfortunate incident one day, when it was chewed off by some other dog that came visiting. It wasn’t me, I swear. It was that other dog. Really.
Purple Klingon
Aha! Finally I get to show those Klingons who’s boss! Take that, you purple fiend!
Spidie
This spider has lots of legs, enabling one to get a good hold for the thrashing. This one usually hangs out under the sofa, where it is also excellent at gathering the dust bunnies.
Original Fetch
When my humans took me home for the first time, my breeder mom sent me with a toy just like this one. It’s soft and chewy, it has a tail, and it has jingle bells inside it. No. 2 would yell, “Fetch!” and throw this across the room, and I would run like the dickens after it and bring it back.
The fetch is excellent for the hammer toss. The trick is to get ahold of it by the tail and swing it around in circles until maximum velocity is reached, then let it go. It flies like the wind! If you don’t let it go, you get the excellent game of ‘wappity-wap.’ Wappity! Wappity! Wappity wappity wap!
I wappitied that first fetch so many times that it wore out, and No. 1 made me a new one. She sewed it right on her sewing machine while I watched, can you believe how nice she is? She even put the jungle bells in. Then I wore out the second fetch, so she made me another one. The one in the picture is the third iteration. We still call it the Original Fetch, and of all toys, the original is still the best.
Woofs,
Willie
Edited: July 4th, 2011
Did I ever tell you about the time my humans failed the doggie intelligence test?
It’s a good story. It happened a long time ago, back when I was still a youngster and we lived in the old place. You know, the place that looked like this:
Except when it looked like this:
Or this:
Number 1 was always very proud of me and telling everybody that I was the smartest little puppy in the world. Her friend and fellow dog lover, who had three big clumsy white dogs (you can see one of them in this story), invited us over to take a doggie intelligence test.
So here are some of the things they have you do on a doggie intelligence test. They show you a treat and put it under a cup. Then you are supposed to get it out from under the cup. That was easy. I went over to the cup and did the “papillon wave,” where I reared up and waved my front paws vigorously in the air. The humans laughed, but it works every time. Out came the treat. “He asked for help!” they said. I passed!
Then there was the blankie test, where they put a blankie or towel over you and see if you can get out from underneath it. The white dogs, I’m sorry to say, failed this one miserably. You throw the blanket over them, and they say, “Who turned out the lights?” You should have seen them wandering around bumping into stuff. Their brains are almost as small as Klingons, and that’s really saying something.
I, on the other hand moved with such lightning-fast swiftness that they couldn’t even get the blankie on top of me! Woo hoo! I passed! Now can I get another treat?
Well, you get the idea. Ten tests passed with flying colors, ten treats. Oh, and did I tell you what the treats were?
Dog heaven
This was a big-dog house, so I got big-dog treats. I had never eaten those before in my life! Yummmy! More! More!
Now we get to the part where my humans failed the test. Number 1 was thrilled out of her mind, of course, because it had just been proven that I was the smartest little dog in the world. But you see, there was just one problem. A small dog’s stomach only has so much room in it, and when you stuff ten pieces of yummy big-dog treats in there …
Well, let’s just say that they came back out again. It wasn’t my fault. Towels were fetched. Apologies were made. And the smartest little dog on the planet went back home with two mortified humans.
By the way, just for fun, here’s a link to another dog who took the intelligence test and didn’t do quite as well as I did … LOL! Enjoy!
Woofs,
Willie
Edited: July 2nd, 2011
