Dog Diaries

Kermit's Confidences:

My name is Kermit the Dog. I am nine months old. My first owner named me after a muppet. I came to live with my new owners after that first lady said I was a little too much for her.

I am a big, black puppy. I love my new family very much. I love Fall very much. I love to eat the acorns very much. They are little balls rolling all over the land. They make me get a little sick inside, but I still like them very much. I like to chase the leaves in the street very much. It is fun to chase them. They are running away from me, but I will catch them! My mommy has to run with me after the leaves, because I am so fast and strong. I know she likes that exercise very much.

I love my family very much, and I know what they like for me to do: they like for me to share their things. I know they want to share things with me, but they forget. They forget to share, so I take some things. Like bread loaves, cheese, and potatoes. I took a big raw potato the other day and ate it. I like potatoes and things I find on the counter very much. Also I ate a tube of cortizone cream. The people in my family forget to share, so I help them by getting the things off the counter. The little dog likes me then. I share the things from the counter with him.

I like to chew things very much. I like to chew things that remind me of my family. I like to chew socks and shoes very much. I know they leave them out for me to taste, so that I won't forget them while they are at the store. One time I ate a white sock whole. But it made me feel a little sick inside my tummy. Do not worry, right after I swallowed it, I gave it back to mommy, so they could still use it. Mommy didn't want to use it anymore.

When I am outside, I like to be inside. And when I am inside, I like to be outside. I like all the sides. I wish I could be on all the sides at once.

I like the little, grouchy dog, named Cowboy, very much. He does not like me very much. But that is ok because I will keep trying to be friends. He does not like for me to step on him by accident, because I have a big paw. So I tell him I am very sorry by starting a fun game of chase. I know he would like to chase me when I take his red panda toy. It is so fun for us to chase each other. He does like to chase me very much. He does like to bark at me sometimes. I like him very much. He puts all the chewies under the bed. Does he know I do not fit under the bed? One day we will be good friends.

Cowboy's Confidences:

Let's kill the big dog.

No one needs to know.

Kermit's Confidences:

I like to jump on people very much. After I jump on many people mommy puts me in the big crate with a treat to "just quiet down." I don't mind the crate. Sometimes I go in there by myself to quiet down. Sometimes I need to quiet down. Mommy helps me quiet down. It is hard to quiet down.

I am afraid of getting in our car. But when I am already in our car, I like it there very much. I like to look out the window very much. I feel very sad when my people get out of our car for their sports. They leave us and I feel sad, and so I cry out loud for awhile. It is sad that they would leave our car. Why would they leave our car?

I like to rest on the cool floor by mommy and put my head on her feet. I like her feet very much. I don't mind that her feet are very bumpy under my head. I just like to be near my mommy. I like my whole family very much.

Cowboy's Confidences:

He must perish in flames.

Family News: Lucy Speaks Up

The Indignities of the Season

by Lucy Chamberlin
Canine in Residence

A time of joy and merrymaking. A time of wassail and wine. A time of love and family.

But for me, a time of woe.

My story begins a few short weeks ago, when Daddy and That Woman put up, in the center of our family area, a large tree, and hung lights and dog toys all over it. Jingling toys, balls hanging from string, little merry figures clearly made for chewing. A veritable monolith of dog delights, and some edible candy canes thrown in. Then under the tree they lay more toys: colorful, rattling boxes covered in crinkly paper and ribbon.

Oh, what a joy!

And then they told me not to touch it.

But I knew they were joking, so I ate a few of the jolly toys hanging down for me and one of the presents, just a small one in a little velvet box.

Did that garner a zealous response! I was, in a manner of speaking, in the dog house. I heard Sarah say -- referring to Santa's well-known catalog of nomenclature -- "Lucy is not on the Good List."

This is only the latest in the Sad Chapter of Indignities suffered by Yours Truly in this House of Melancholy. All of the other puppies, bipeds, get to sit at the table and eat such foods as the beef, the pork, and the turkey, the eggs and b. (to steal a phrase), and the bread and fine cheeses. I eat dry kibble from a tin bowl on the floor in the corner. When I seek to join the family and contribute to the domestic communion, by resting my front paws on the kitchen table and burrowing my snout in the nearest soup bowl, I am roundly scolded and sent to the garage. I even have heard That Woman referring to me as "a maniac." A person of my careful breeding and woolly beauty!

I love dearly to eat the delicious snacks Mother Nature has provided off of the wild Southern Pecan tree in the back yard, I so enjoy the dark and moldy shells and bitter innards. (No matter that I later leave the contents of my stomach on the cream-colored shag carpet in the master bedroom, you and I know that small discomfort is well worth the crunchy delight of such dainties.) That Woman apparently doesn't agree or share my passion for pecans or my sanguine view of those gastronomic leavings, and has been keeping me from eating the pecans, going so far as to sweep them right out of my mouth. Oh, I hear her talking about it being "for your own good," but I know better. Where is the love?

Ah, my friends. I know that my lot is not a lonely one, for when we go to the dog park, we all reference the same sad story... the favoritism for the two-legged puppies, the torturous trees of untouchable delight erected in the homes at Christmas, the lack of beef.

Stay strong, Canine Companions. It is a hard lot, but....a walk?

Did she say "walk?"

Yes, yes, yes!...I love walks!...happy happy happy happy...