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Danny, Cinnamon and the Kitten

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Hi, it’s me again, Danny the Dog. Today, I want to go into more detail about my friend Cinnamon. She lives down the street and we visit most mornings. But she has this thing for cats. I don’t mean as a normal dog would have a thing for cats, like you and me. She likes them! I know, I didn’t believe it either until I beheld a mind-boggling incident with my own eyes.

I must admit there was a time, in my younger days, that I hung around with cats. Well, they were actually kittens. My human, whose name is Andrew, brought home a kitten one day and before you knew it, the damn thing was grown and had a litter of six, and shortly after they were weaned she disappeared. And guess who took over looking after the little monsters? I got no peace during the day because they would follow me around everywhere I went in the yard or inside the house. In those days, we lived in a house with a dog door, so I could come and go as I pleased. At night, the kittens would crowd me. One of them, Blackie, slept on my neck every night! But eventually they grew up and started doing whatever it is that cats do and I went back to being a dog, not a surrogate mother.

Now, what I am about to tell you is true, I swear it on Lassie’s grave. I was over at Cinnamon’s house and we were in the yard sniffing around, at least I was. Cinnamon had her nose in the air and it was twitching a mile a minute. I gave a sniff or two, but didn’t detect anything of interest, so I went back to a fascinating scent over by the corner of the house.

When I next looked up, Cinnamon was gone. The yard is fenced in, so I thought maybe she went into the house. But it was funny that I didn’t hear her human come and get her. I must have been engrossed more than I thought with the scent I was following. I think it was a raccoon. My human was in the house also, but I have him trained well enough by now that he lets me pursue my delights without too much interference from him.

So I’m scampering around the yard, running hither and yond. Sniffing this and that when who do I see outside the fence, but Cinnamon! She trotted over to the far corner, got down on her belly and squeeze under the fence. I didn’t even see that escape route. If I had, I’d be long gone. But then again, I wasn’t thinking of running away because Cinnamon came up to me, and she had a kitten in her mouth. At first, I thought the kitten was dead, but Cinnamon was holding her gingerly and the kitten didn’t seem to mind. Then Cinnamon did an extraordinary thing. She gently put the feline on the grass and put her big paw on it, to hold it in place.

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I was thinking, “How nice, a present for me.” But she readily disabused me of that notion by licking the damn little thing. She was cleaning it! Just then, Andrew and Cinnamon’s human (her name is Maggie) came out of the house. They had been in there doing what humans do when there is one female and one male involved and they are alone. I don’t even like to think about it.

Maggie walked up to Cinnamon and said, “Oh no, not again!” Then she turned to Andrew and continued talking, “She did this a few months ago, she has this thing for kittens. She wants to adopt them. The cat you saw in the house, Roscoe, she brought home. I had to walk the neighborhood trying to find where he belonged, but I never did find out. So Cinnamon and I acquired a new member to our family.”

The upshot of the whole story is that Maggie never did find out where Cinnamon snatched the latest kitten from, whose name is now Fuzzy. Sometimes Andrew and I go over there and spend the night. These are the sleeping arrangements: Cinnamon sleeps curled up around Fuzzy and Roscoe, Andrew and Maggie sleep together, and me, the intrepid watchdog stays in the backyard and watches for marauding raccoons.

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Danny and the Jogger

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By now most of you should know me, but for those few who don’t, I’m Danny the Dog, and every once in a while, I chronicle my exploits. Today I want to tell you all of our morning walk of a few days ago. I always take my human out for a walk in the morning; his name is Andrew.

On this particular day, I was feeling feisty. I barked at a few cars as they went by, did some good sniffing and was enjoying myself to no end. We were headed to the neighborhood park where I can revel in the many scents. Usually it’s just dogs, but every once in a while I get a whiff of a wild animal, mostly raccoons, and that’s a lot of fun. I drag Andrew all over the place as I follow their scent. We usually end up at a tree and I get up on my hind legs and try to climb the tree because I know that there is a raccoon up there. But I’m not a very good tree climber, so I bark at Andrew to go up and chase the raccoon down. But he never does it; I don’t think he can climb trees either. But I’m getting away from my story.

So, we’re walking down the street minding our own business when this human female runs right past us. Because she didn’t stop to tell me what a cute dog I was, I barked at her a couple of times. I would have chased after her and bit her if Andrew hadn’t had me on that damn leash of his. You see, I’m used to females of the human species stopping to tell me what a cutie I am. I tell you, I was insulted, but I got over it quickly because just then I picked up a good scent off to the side.

A few minutes later, we got to the park, and who did we see but the female runner, and she was headed toward us. I was getting ready to let out with a loud bark when she stopped right before me, bent down and said, “What a little cutie, what’s his name?”

Now, I have to tell you about Andrew. He’s not very good around females. I think it’s because they always make a fuss over me and ignore him. Anyway, the female is waiting for an answer and Andrew is tongue-tied. Finally, he tells her my name and she rubs the top of my head. So I decided not to bite her.

She then told Andrew that she lived with a six-month-old dog by the name of Cinnamon and that she would like to introduce her to yours truly.  For a minute, I thought Andrew was going say something stupid like we had to get home or something like that. Then I would have had to bite him. But he came through and told her we would like to meet Cinnamon. So the female invited us home for something called coffee.

I guess coffee is just another word for dog biscuits because that is what I was given when we went into her house. Then we went to the back yard and I met Cinnamon..IMG_2472

As Cinnamon and I got to know each other, Andrew and the female sat on the porch and watched us cavort.

Now we go over there every day. I play with Cinnamon and Andrew plays with the female. But humans don’t know how to play. They just sit there and watch us, drink a brown liquid and talk. I tried to tell Andrew that there are great smells in Cinnamon’s yard, but he doesn’t seem to care. For ten years, I’ve been trying to educate him on the finer things in life, but he just doesn’t get it.

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Danny's Friend Chuck

 

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Hello, my name is Andrew and I am Danny the Dog’s human. I will be writing his blog today because Danny went to the beach with his girlfriend. He wrote about her a few days ago, so you know all about her. Danny has asked me to tell you about Chuck the Wonder Dog. This is a true story.

Chuck roomed with a human by the name of Jeff. Now Jeff is a good enough guy, but we have different outlooks on dogs. Jeff thinks dogs should be well trained while I take a more lackadaisical approach to dog training. Actually, Danny has me pretty well trained after ten years of being together. Anyway, when Chuck and Jeff first got together, Chuck was just a puppy and Jeff started right in on the training. Once the basics were covered, he began teaching Chuck to count. Yeah I know, but Jeff is a boat captain and he has plenty of time on his hands.

The way he did it was to hold up one finger and get Chuck to bark once. When Chuck got the one finger, one bark down, Jeff went to two fingers and so on until Chuck would bark ten times when Jeff held up ten fingers. And that was as high as Chuck could count unless Jeff wanted to take off his shoes and even Jeff ain’t that anal.

So now, Chuck will bark the requisite number of times for the number of fingers held before him. Eight, six, four or whatever, got the picture? Then Jeff started in on teaching Chuck how to add, subtract, multiply and divide. No fooling! I don’t know how he did it; I think all the credit should go to Chuck for being so smart. But in the end, Jeff could hold up, for instance, two fingers and say, “Two plus three,” then hold up three fingers and Chuck would bark five times. Or Jeff would show Chuck seven fingers and say, “Seven minus three.” then hold up three fingers and Chuck would bark four times. Chuck could do any combination of numbers up to ten.

Now we come to the kicker. As I said, Jeff is a boat captain and he hangs around the docks with the other captains. And if you know anything about boat captains, you know they are a languid breed. So while these lay-abouts hung out at the local bar, Jeff would entertain them with Chuck’s math skills, they were all duly impressed. All that is except on guy.

So one day this guy sees Jeff on the dock and comes up to him and says “I’ll bet you I can give Chuck a math problem that he can’t figure out.” And Jeff replies, “As long as it’s doesn’t involve a number higher that ten, Chuck can handle it. So they bet a case of beer.

Now picture this: the guy is in front of Chuck and Jeff is standing behind the guy. The guy bends down and says to Chuck, “What is the square root of nine?” Chuck looks up over the guy’s shoulder and Jeff holds up three fingers. Of course, Chuck barks three times. The guy turns around real quick, but not quickly enough. Jeff is walking away like he had nothing to do with anything. The guy scratched his head and headed out to buy a case of beer.

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Well . . . it’s been fun taking over for Danny for one day, but he’ll be back on the computer tomorrow. And thank God for that. I’m not a very good storyteller, Danny could have told Chuck’s story so much better than I did.

http://huckfinn76.com

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Danny and Bob

31091_1348757250745_6079042_nWell folks, I’ve told you all about my girlfriend, my human and other good stuff. So today, I’m going to tell you about my best friend Bob, he’s a dog like me, I’m Danny the Dog.

Bob and I met up at the park where I sometimes take my human. By the way, my human’s name is Andrew. He’s not too smart, but he does put food on the table every night. So for that I keep him around. Of course, I eat out of a bowl on the floor; it is so much more refined than eating at a table, but back to Bob.

When Bob and I first met, I must admit that I was a bit rambunctious. He’s yellow lab and he is bigger than me, so from the get go I had to teach him who was in charge. It didn’t take long and now we are fast friends. But what I want to tell you about is the time we got away from our humans and had a night on the town.

I was sitting out on the dock next to our boat, it was late and Andrew was asleep. I like to spend the night outside. You never know, maybe a stray cat might wonder by, and who doesn’t like to chase cats? Anyway, I’m sitting there protecting the marina from marauding cats when who do I see trotting toward me but Bob!

He told me he had gotten out of his yard by digging a hole under the fence and that because we were best buds, he came over to hip me to the fact that there were two overturned garbage cans down the block and the pickings were good. I must say that I was touched that he would come and get me to share in such a succulent feast. Needless to say we headed right out as Bob lead the way.

I’ll cut this short and not describe all the goodies we found in those cans. Suffice it to say we had a grand old time. When it started to get light out, I told Bob I had to head back to the boat because if Andrew got up and saw me gone, he’d freak out.

So that is why I like Bob, in fact he’s the only dog that I do like.

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Danny's Affinities

Today I want to talk about two of my most favorite things in the world. First, I would like to introduce myself to anyone who may be new to these dispatches that I send out from my boat. I’m Danny the Dog. I live on a boat with my human, Andrew. We coexist like the old USSR and the USA coexisted during the cold war. He’s okay for a human.

So, now down to business.

I want to tell you about my love of hot dogs. Every morning when I take Andrew out for his walk, after we come back, he’ll give me a hot dog. This is something new in our relationship, but I’m not complaining. The thing is that Andrew is so malleable I have conned him into giving a second hot dog.

Allow me to explain. Earlier I wrote about how I had trained him, but I neglected to tell of how I now have it down to single bark commands. The way it works is that I’ll bark once if I want Andrew to do something for me. If he doesn’t hop to within thirty seconds, I bark again, just once. That usually does it. I seldom have to bark a third time. So after I finish my morning hot dog, I give the command and Andrew brings me another one. I always try for a third hot dog, but Andrew isn’t that well trained yet.

Now to my next great joy, chasing anything with wheels on it. Don’t you just love to bark at and chase cars? Well, I do. I must admit, I don’t always do it, but when I do, I do it with a vengeance. Once Andrew had me tied to a tree while he was communing with nature or whatever the hell he does when he’s around trees (I use trees for a completely different reason). We were behind this building and a big truck, an eighteen-wheeler, came by. I couldn’t resist, I went after it full force. But wouldn’t you know it? The damn leash stopped me two feet from the damn truck! The driver slammed on his brakes and had a pained look on his face, so it wasn’t all for naught.

26226_1287952450663_8272048_nThe last thing I want to tell you about is the time I bounced off of Beth’s wheel. Somehow I connived to get off the leash Andrew insist I wear, and as he was distracted trying to entice a female onto our boat, Beth, our neighbor, came by in her truck. It was too good to pass up and I tore out after the offending vehicle. Well, I’m embarrassed to say so, but I misjudged my trajectory and hit the front wheel. Poor Beth thought she had run over me. Andrew had a heart attack. And I just stood there with a grin on my face. After all, when Beth stopped, I had won. I captured the truck.

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Danny's Girlfriend

IMG_2464Hello all you dog lovers out there. It's me again, Danny the Dog. Today I want to tell you about Heather, she's my girlfriend. She lives on a sailboat a couple of slips down from my boat. Well, Andrew’s boat and mine. You remember him, he's my hapless human.

First of all, I bet you all think Heather is a dog. Well she's not, she a human. I know, no one is perfect, except maybe me. But human or not, I think Heather is cool. We first met a few months ago when she brought her sailboat to the marina for repairs.

The first time I saw Heather, I was outside on the dock catching a few rays. I like to soak up a little sun in the wintertime, when it’s cool, to lighten my fur. I think it makes me look more attractive. Anyway, she came off her boat and scratched me behind the ear. It was love at first scratch.

I’m sure she feels the same way about me because she is always giving me “cookies” as she calls them. They’re really just dog biscuits, but what the hell. A few years ago, Andrew brought some home and I wouldn’t eat one of them. He eventually ended up throwing them out. But somehow, from Heather’s hand they are oh so sweet. She also gave me the water bowl that you see in the picture above.

Nowadays when I take Andrew for a walk, I run right up to Heather’s boat with my tail a waggin’ and I won’t move until she comes out and pats me on the head. Andrew doesn’t like the delay to his walk, but he’s well trained and he stands there until I’m ready to go.

But I’m sad as I write these words. You see Heather is leaving me. Her boat is repaired and she will be setting sail for the Islands in about a week. I would like to go with her, and she has offered to take me, but I can’t leave Andrew. He would be lost without me. He can’t even find his shoes in the morning without my help. And who would write his books for him? No. I can’t go away with Heather. I will miss her. And out of memory of her, I swear I will never eat another dog biscuit once she is gone.

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Danny's Training

IMG_2459Today I'm writing to my fellow dogs. I want to tell of how I trained my human, his name is Andrew.

I started the training right away, right after I adopted him. We were in the back yard and I was running around sniffing all the wonderful scents and enjoying being a dog when Andrew called me over. He had a ball in his hand and he threw it to the other side of the yard. Then he said "Fetch" and added, "Go get it boy!" So that's what fetch means.

Well, I just looked at him and thought, If you wanted the ball so bad why did you throw it away to begin with? After Andrew fetched the ball and threw it a few more times and fetched it a few more times, he got the idea that I'm not a ball chasing kind of dog. I know some of you like to chase balls and sticks, but not me.

Next, I had to train him when we took our walks. We all know that walks are not for exercise, doing your "business" or to enjoy the scenery. Walks are for sniffing where other dogs have gone before. But humans just don't get it.

At first, Andrew would let me sniff for a few seconds and then tug on the insidious leash he makes me wear. But I planted my feet, all four of them, firmly on the ground. The only thing that moved was my collar when it slipped off. Then he bought me a chest harness. It's green and looks good against my brown fur if I do say so myself. Anyway, that didn't work either, I just dug in deeper. Now Andrew waits patiently while I get my sniffing done.

The last thing I want to tell you about is what Andrew calls my passive resistance. You all know how much fun it is to roll around on the grass. Well, I happen to like it more than most dogs. And when I'm done, I lay there with a smile on my face. Of course, Andrew is always in a rush to get home. But I'm not moving until I'm ready, so he drags me along the soft grass like a sack of potatoes (it feels good) until he sees I'm not getting up. Then I'm left alone to get up under my own volition. I got that idea from reading a book about some guy named Gandhi.

Okay, that's it. Now get out there and train your humans. They will thank you for it and be much happier.

http://huckfinn76.com

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Danny's Friend Sam

Today I want to tell you about my friend Sam.

He spent the night out on the town. He was running with some of his own kind and they made a night of it. But it wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted a home and a friend. He had been taken from his mother when he was quite young. In fact, he could not remember his mother or his siblings. He was given to a family that did not treat him well.

At the first opportunity he ran away. Now it has been awhile since he has known the love of another. If only he could be loved.

On his way to find a place to sleep the day away, he came upon a boy of about twelve years of age; the boy, whose name was Butch, smiled when he saw him.

“Hi. What’s your name?” asked the boy.

“What’s my name?” he thought, “I don’t know! No one has ever addressed me by any other name than “Hey you!” When I was trying to cadge some food and the old woman would catch me, she would always say, “Hey you, get out of here.” Then she would take a broom to me.

Butch did not wait for an answer. Instead he approached and knelt down to eye level and said, “I like you. I think I’ll name you Sam.”

At that his tail started to wag. Sam sounds like a fine name, he thought.

So it was that the boy Butch and the dog Sam became fast friends and Sam finally found the love and the friend he had yearned for.31091_1348759650805_5378452_n

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Danny's Freedom

Hey guys, it's me again, Danny the dog.

I've just been reading a little Billy Shakespeare and listening to Kris Kristofferson. Genius will tell out. What got to me this day was how they both spoke to having nothing. Billy said, "Having nothing, nothing can he lose." and Kris wrote, "Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose. Nothin' ain't worth nothin' but it's free."31091_1348757250745_6079042_n

In dog years I'm an old man, or an old dog if you will; and with age comes experience and with experience comes wisdom. And with wisdom comes the realization that we need nothing to be, nothing to exist. We accumulate so much crap and it never makes us happy. Here in America we have storage facilities on every friggin' corner We have so much crap we have to pay someone to hold it for us.

Over one hundred years ago Henry David Thoreau told his neighbors that they saved things and put them in their attics and there the stuff stayed until they died. Then their heirs sold the stuff and people bought it and put it in their attics until they died. Ecetra ... ecetra ... ecetra.

Wait a minute ... it's hard to write and listen to Kris ... "Feelin good was easy Lord when Bobby sang the blues. Buddy that was good enough for me ... good enough for me and Bobby McGee ..." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-J7mLyD3yc

Wow ... that song does something to me ... okay where was I?

I reckon what I want to say today is that all we need, dogs, humans and anyone else, is love. There is only love. There is fear of course, the fear of not having enough, the fear of not being loved enough. But love will always triumph fear. So my non-dog friends, love. I'm a dog and I love my human unconditionally. Love those around you, never trade your love, never ask for something in return because then it is not love.

"I'd trade all my tomorrows for a single yesterday ..."