Swimming

I like to swim. No, I take that back. I LOVE to swim. When I was younger, they called me Fish Boy. That's how much I love to swim.


Here I am, acting as Chief Lifeguard at Hanging Horn Lake. It was quite the job, let me tell you. The Humans - that's Original Mom on the left - just did not understand the need for safety. They didn't stay close to shore, they were not consistently using the buddy system... the only saving grace is that they were in relatively shallow water, so I didn't have to watch them every second.

But as I've mentioned before, because I am unable to whistle, and the Humans would not provide me with an external whistle, I had to complete the well-known "Nose Check for Safety" constantly. Luckily, and through no small effort on my part, everyone made it out of the water safely. Next time I'm bringing a longer leash. Or perhaps stilts....

How'd that get there?

So when I first came to Minnesota, it was fall. September, I think. Maybe late August? It was a while ago, and it was still nice and warm, I remember that much. Anyways, on my various jaunts around town I began to notice that everyone was marking very high on all of the trees. Could it be that many of the dogs in the midwest were freakishly tall? Needless to say, I was slightly confused. Being a tall dog myself, it wasn't all that difficult to match what I was sniffing, but some of those spots were just uncomfortable, if not downright impossible to hit!
Fall gradually became winter, and I began to realize that there weren't marauding gangs of gangly-legged dogs wandering the streets, harassing passers-by and showing off their stilt-walking prowess. No no no, nothing nearly so elaborate. Instead I discovered that the wonderfulness that is Snow! (see my earlier post) piled up around the bases of the trees, thus adding several inches (or more!) to everyone. Mystery solved!
However, due to the ever-changing nature of Snow, I have found that it gradually loses some of it's fluffiness, and becomes more icy. (Unlike myself, who is always fluffy, and never becomes icy, unless you're mean to me. But I digress.) Which is fine, I like ice. It tastes good. Wets the whistle, and all that. By the way, I can't whistle.... Somebody needs to get on that, pronto!

So, as I said, mystery solved. There are no vicious gangs of freakishly tall dogs wandering around the Twin Cities, so you can sleep easy tonight. But keep an eye out - they might be reading this blog and get ideas. Oh, and one more thing - always pee on the upwind side of the pole. Otherwise it gets messy.

Well, that's all for now. Here is your quote, well said by some guy I've never met.
"In order to really enjoy a dog, one doesn't merely try to train him to be semihuman. The point of it is to open oneself to the possibility of becoming partly a dog." - Edward Hoagland