Deus Sol Invictus

...is the reason for the season.

Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa, and Blessed Whatever Else you celebrate this time of year.

Silent Night?

Sometimes you have to stay one step ahead of the humans. Mom (otherwise known as the human goddess) brought out that dreaded (not to mention ridiculous) music again. Christmas Unleashed by the Jingle Dogs. Bark bark bark. Woof woof woof. Hoooowwwwl. Even a few meows thrown in to add insult to ear injury. "Waltz of the Snowflakes"? "The Nutcracker March"? "Ding Dong Merrily on High"?

Mom watched my sister and me expectantly. She wanted us to bark, I just knew it. Or maybe do that real cute quizzical head-cocking thing we do when we hear something weird.

We did something way cooler.

Nothing. No reaction. We unequivocally ignored the music. Ignored it? We didn't even hear it. We pretended we were sleeping.

Sometimes you have to ignore bad behavior in humans. Responding only encourages them.

My sister is patriotic!

It's almost July 4th. You know, "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands,
one Nation, under Dog..."

WOOP

My sister makes more noise when she's sleeping than when she's awake. I think she channels the souls of her ancestors. She's probably dreaming about being a wild dog in Australia. Last night she said WOOP. Repeatedly. WOOP. At twenty second intervals. WOOP. The humans thought the sound was coming from a freakish animal somewhere. They were right.

Rabbit season

My sister found something in the yard. It was moving around in the grass. She picked it up in her mouth and it started squeaking frantically! She thought it would be a good idea to bring this squeaking thing into the house.

Our humans said "No." Sister put the thing down and they made us go inside. We sat around looking guilty.

The humans decided the squeaky thing was a baby bunny. It had no fur and its ears were stuck down on its head. It was tiny and pathetic. They were afraid it would die out there in the yard, alone. They said my sister probably wanted to take care of it. I thought she wanted to eat it.

We coaxed the baby bunny into a safe place in the yard, right near one of the places where rabbits pop up out of the ground. Then we made the place even safer by putting a little fence around it. That fence is too small too stop dogs or anything from getting in. It must be a psychological barrier, but it works for me.

Later a normal-size rabbit was sitting inside the fence! And the next time we looked, there were even more baby bunnies wriggling around in the same place. Three or four of them. It was silly because the big rabbit looked like a stupid chicken hatching some eggs.

Silly rabbit

Er, silly dog... Cadbury Creme Eggs are for people. Technically (according to Mom), Cadbury Creme Eggs are not fit for human consumption either.

IMPORTANT REMINDER: Chocolate is very bad for dogs. There's something called theobromine in chocolate. It can make us very very very sick. So keep chocolate away from dogs. It's dangerous!


Watch it, my sister will steal your jelly beans! You should have seen Mom chasing that dog around trying to keep the rabbit ears on and getting her to sit still long enough to pose for a picture.

Happy Valentine's Day

My sister wants to give you a big kiss.

Love-hate relationship

I can hear it in the distance. It rolls up the street with its engine rumbling. The hyper-mega monster on wheels. The sound of the hydraulic brakes are a carefully nuanced threat. It's huge, it's mean, it's brown, and it's stopping in front of my house. Red alert! Battle cry! Bark! Someone is climbing out of the belly of this monster. He's wearing a uniform. He looks like he has evil intentions. He knocks on the door. Sister and I want to tear him up. We bark ferociously. We're protecting our territory. We hate this guy. He leaves a package on the porch. A bomb? Then he hurries away to bother someone else.

Oh. It's a package for us. Chocolate Nylabones, our favorite! What a nice man. I'm feeling conflicted, but I don't care.

I am the evil paparazzo

This is a picture of my sister. She's been part of the family for almost two years.

It was right around Christmas in 2003. The humans went out, as humans often do. I thought they were just doing that usual sort of hunting and gathering activity where they come back with bags of food. Was I ever wrong...
(I've told this story before. You can read about it here.)

Remember when I said my sister is a privacy hound? Well, there are limits to my tolerance. Notice the angelic expression on her face. It's really a look of guilt. That's my bed, not hers. Wake up and share the limelight, Sis!

Designer dogs

We watch dog shows sometimes. There is way too much cooing over the French Bulldogs. I wonder when Puggles (that hybrid of Pug and Beagle) will show up in the competitions.

My papers say I'm a Dachshund-Terrier mix, but according to my humans, that's not accurate. In reality, I'm a Dachshund-Terror, sometimes even a Dachshund-Derriere.

My sister is an exotic blend too, but she's also a Privacy Hound, so I won't divulge the details of her lineage.

My sister is afraid of the vacuum

Not in the metaphysical sense, but in the electrical appliance sense. I think it's the noise and the threatening attack-and-retreat motion. I used to be a little afraid of the vacuum until we got my sister. Now I sit there nonchalantly and let her take care of it. I hate to admit it, but it makes me feel superior.

Right now my sister is very cute. She is curled up on the human's big bed. She looks small, even though she is bigger than me. She is sleeping in the pane of warm sunlight from the window, only waking up to change position when the sun moves across the sky. Her tail end is hanging off the side of the bed, but she keeps her balance.

You're not the boss of me

My sister is not the worst dog in the world, but she has some annoying habits. She thinks she can tell me what to do and she even tries to herd me around. She's part dingo or something. I'm not going to tell you her name because she thinks the internet is boring and she's too Zen to care about blogging. It's funny, she answers to a few different names anyway. This is because she came from a dubious and scattered background. At first I thought that was real shady, but then I found out she had a not-good life as a puppy and ended up in a shelter.

When the humans brought her home, I hated her immediately. I barked ferociously at this four-legged intrusion. Was I going to have to share my food? Was this dumb dog going to take attention away from me? Was my smug little world about to be shaken? I remember waking up the next morning. What? She's still here?

She likes me; I tolerate her.

Poor doggy. She didn't even know how to play with toys. We gave her those chicken things that you bite, and those vegetable things that you bite. Booda-somethings. Then after a few weeks of gnawing on those, I let her share my Nylabones. Now we spend some time chewing on "virtually indestructible" Nylabones everyday. Our humans call it "the bone factory." We have the strongest jaws in town from all that exercise. As bad as our bark is, our bite is even worse, so watch it, suckers!

She's a pretty good dog, after all. Way more well-behaved than me. I don't mind if she bosses me around sometimes. I know I'm still the prince of the universe.