Happy Anniversary To Me

Two years ago yesterday, the family shlepped (oy am I a Jewish dog) to Huntley, IL to adopt me from a shelter.  Of course, when they drove to pick me up, they didn’t know they were going to adopt ME, but they did.  Though I haven’t written as much as I would have liked this past year, it has been a great year.  Barack Obama became president, his kids finally got that dog they wanted, Lil Joe had his Bar Mitzvah, Hallie’s Museum opened, and  meeting our neighbor, Jorge, who walks me some times.  I also scraped the window sills and radiator covers by two windows ’cause I have to bark at every dog that goes by this house and I’m still living here.  What a great place.  It’s not only humans, who need to take the time to appreciate the little and big things going on in one’s life.  So, this is my day to appreciate the little (loofa dogs) and the big (a family’s love) today.  I am one lucky dog!

What’s Going On?

Something fishy is going on around here.  Hallie has been running around the house telling everyone to bring their clothes to her room.  They bring their stuff to her and then she says – “what about your bathing suit, what about PJ’s?”  Then she put everyone’s clothes into these big boxes that zip up.  I hung out in her room all night and she did not ask me once to bring her one of my loofas or my leash.  She didn’t put anything of mine into the big boxes.

Earlier this week, a young guy with long hair came by and Hallie showed him all around our house, with a special emphasis on my leash and walking me.  She also showed him where my food is and where Peepers’ food is.  Then Jorge, our neighbor came by and she gave him a key.  He’s that nice guy, that walked me the 4 days that the family was away visiting the red hair lady and the bald guy.  He is very comforting.

“Hey wait a minute, – is the family going away again?”  Last night while everyone was a sleep I looked at the papers on the table.  There were passports (one for everyone and none for me) and airline tickets to Spain and information about a mediterranean cruise.  What?  They know I don’t like cruising.  I guess that is why Jorge and the long haired guy will be staying with me.  Bon Voyage!

Misbehaving

I read with great interest the story that appeared in yesterday’s New York Times regarding the Governor of New York’s dog.  Apparently, this little maltese, Cheerio, has bitten several visitors to the Governor’s mansion.  A word to the wise my little friend, “do not bite guests to your home, especially if it is a mansion.”

As you know, I am a barker.  I bark when people come to the door, whenever the doorbell rings and when dogs walk by our house.  I can tell that this behavior is very annoying, especially to My G and Lil Joe.  However, I draw the line at biting people.  This just cannot be tolerated.  Cheerio should know that some dogs get sent to the doggie farm when they bite people and they don’t come back.  Luckily for Cheerio, his family is going to bring in a dog trainer.  Hopefully he will learn to behave better.

It’s just hard to believe that this  dog got a huge article in the New York Times for misbehaving.  Too bad that there aren’t more stories about the sweet  and kind dogs and all the good that they do.  I know, I know, those kind of stories just don’t make the news.  I just hope that Bo, President Obama’s dog, sees this as a warning.  Any dog that is in the public spotlight because of their human, can easily find themselves top story in any supermarket tabloid – even the New York Times.

10,000 Steps

At the urging of Hallie’s good friend with the red-hair, Hallie bought a pedomter.   She wants to walk 10,000 steps every day.  Apparently that is the suggested amount of steps that all humans should take every day. Well, of course, I’m proud of Hallie that she cares so much about her health. Unfortunately for me, she takes at least 5,000 of these steps with me.   For instance, this past weekend, every time that I would settle down in one of my many comfy spots all over the house, there was Hallie yelling, “Miles, let’s go for a walk.”  She knows that I can’t resist that.  But I must admit, by Sunday night I was pooped.  I had barely any energy to bark and scrape the window sill as I watched people and dogs go by our house.  Maybe it’s true what they say that a “good dog is a tired dog?”  B’s friend, the Cantor, just came over and he asked, “has Miles lost weight?”  It’s not like I am fat or anything, but maybe I do have a little more “skootch” in my rear.  I may be willing to walk 5,000 steps a day, but I just heard that the red hair lady told Hallie that active people should really walk 13,000 steps a day.  That would mean 6,500 steps just for me.  I’ll do it because I just love being near my Hallie.

Shout Out To Esther and Border Collies

Hallie has this very good friend, Esther, who she met when My G started kindergarten.  My G was in the same class as Esther’s son.  Esther and Hallie have been friends ever since.  Esther loves all dogs, but she especially loves border collies.  When they first met, Esther and her family, but mostly Esther, had a really nice dog named, Tess.  In those days, Hallie was still afraid of dogs and Esther and Tess were very understanding of her fear.  One time Esther even picked up some dog poop outside of our house because Hallie thought it was too gross to do it herself. Tess passed a few years ago.  Esther immediately adopted a new border collie, Annie.  She is a good dog mother – very patient, loving and understanding.  Annie was from a border collie rescue and like me, she is one lucky dog.

More recently Esther fostered another border collie through the rescue named Gracie.  She welcomed Gracie into her home and helped her get use to other dogs and to people.  Another family now has Gracie.  It’s good that there are people out there like Esther.  All too often, dogs are mistreated by humans and it’s important that we acknowledge heroes like Esther when they are in our midst.

Can’t Live With ‘Em, Can’t Live Without ‘Em

FAMILY… that’s what I’m talking about.  You can’t live with ‘em and you can’t live without ‘em.  Last week the “GP’s” (that’s grandparents”) came to visit.  They are Hallie’s parents – Bubbe Esther and Zayde Al.  Truth be told I was a lot nicer than I have previously been to them.  You know how much I hate when people visit and take away Hallie’s attention from me.  But this time, for the GP’s, I tried to behave better.  I did pretty well.  I didn’t bark at them all of the time, just some of the time,  and I even think that Zayde Al is a little less scared of me.  Of course, why would anyone be scared of me?

It is Bubbe Esther’s 75th birthday on June 26.  Hallie arranged for her brother, AJ and sister-in-law, Ninsy, to surprise Bubbe and they all had a delicious dinner at a fancy restaurant.  Bubbe was quite surprised and the it sounds like the food was yummy.  Even though I have been behaving so much better, I wasn’t allowed to eat at that restaurant.  And there were no doggie bags for me.

The next day, AJ and Ninsy stopped by the house.  When Ninsy came in she mentioned that I looked fat!  The nerve.  And then later on (within the same half hour), to add insult to injury, she said I was ugly.   What the hell? She must have been having a very bad day – because I know for a fact that she is a wonderful dog mother.  She has two dogs, Barclay and Chester, and I’m sure that she never calls them fat or ugly.  Hallie made her go to the Holocaust Museum and maybe she was just in a bad mood after that experience.  I’m going to give her the benefit of the doubt.  But either way… family – you can’t live with ‘em and you can’t live without ‘em.

Happy Mother’s Day

Can it honestly be more than a month since I have written?  Well, truth be told, many of my loyal readers may not know this, but Hallie actually does the typing for this blog.  Being a dog, of course, I have trouble typing – it’s something to do with my thumbs – they aren’t  as flexible as humans.  So, I surf the net, listen to NPR, think of stuff to write about and Hallie does the typing from my dictation.

So, for those of you who know Hallie, you surely know that she has been extremely busy at her work.  She works at the new Holocaust Museum in Skokie, IL.  The museum officially opened on April 19, 2009. Bill Clinton,  Elie Wiesel, Governor Quinn, the German Ambassador and a whole host of others spoke at the opening.  (Please note that no dogs were on the dais).  That girl was working like a mad woman – practically day and night.  B and the boys took care of everything on the home front – but I just felt uncomfortable asking them to take my dictation.

Well, Hallie is slowly coming back to the family – her workload and stress, while still quite big, is shrinking.  Today, Mother’s Day is the day she returns and takes care of my needs.  So, welcome back Hallie.  You are the best Mom a dog could have – you are my alpha dog and I would do anything for you except stop barking at other dogs that pass by our house.  Have a great day and thanks for the nice walk this morning.

Spring Is In the Air?

Was it really just two weeks ago that I wrote a post about warm weather and long walks?  Well, this morning I woke up to cold, sticking-to-the-ground snowy weather.  What’s up with that?    Here I am laying on a warm radiator, Hallie’s drinking her coffee and reading the New York Times, and B wants to go for a walk?  Did he even take one look out there?  I wanted to go for a walk like I wanted a cat to play with – NOT!  But alas, I am a dog – and dogs need their walks for more than exercise – if you know what I mean.  So B donned his winter coat and put on his boots.  I wore my usual fur coat and no boots and out we went.  Brrrrr it was cold.  Luckily I did my business pretty quickly so that we could cut through the alley and head back home.  No need to walk all the way around the block on a day like today.  So, after I write this, I’m spendiing the rest of the day, on the radiator, occasionally looking out the window, but mostly lounging and sleeping – Ahhh nirvana!

SPRING IS IN THE AIR

Aaaaahh – it’s mid-March and the living is easy.  The weather was beautiful this weekend.  I looked out my many windows and saw that it was sunny without a cloud in the sky.  I had no idea that it was warmer outside, but it was.  On Saturday Hallie took me for a really long walk to return some movies at Blockbuster.  It was great.  True to form she let me sniff all of the goodies I could find on the  ground.

Today, Hallie and Lil Joe took me for a long walk too.  Hallie also took me to Petco for a full fledge beauty treatment.  I had the works – a bath, conditioner, my teeth brushed, my nails cut and my ears cleaned.  They used some cucumber smelling soap which sounds kind of gross, but it actually smelled quite yummy.  My old friend Suzi no longer works at Petco.  I kind of miss her.  The last time I went to Petco for my treatment, I didn’t behave so well and they couldn’t even cut my nails.  Today, I behaved much better.  I think that I really prefer the ladies giving me my beauty treatments.  Hallie bought me a new toy and some yummy chews.  I would say that this was a perfect weekend for this lucky dog.

Sadness for Martha

I spent most of the day inside today and had a chance to surf the web.   I came across a story about Martha Stewart’s dog who was killed along with 16 other dogs at a kennel in Pennsylvania.  Apparently, a man who worked at the kennel was filling a propane tank and there was an explosion.  That guy is a real hero, because even though he was critically injured, he still tried to save some of the other dogs at the kennel.  Unfortunately, Martha Stewart’s dog, Ghenghis Khan, a chow puppy, was killed.

So, I don’t even know who Martha Stewart is because I am just a dog, but I do know that lots of bad things happen to dogs and other animals all of the time.  If dogs were treated better, there wouldn’t be so many dogs in shelters, looking for good homes like mine.  Every so often some celebrity, like Martha, Oprah or Paris are in the news because of their animals.  I just wish there were more stories about regular people, who take in shelter dogs and try to give them a good life – even though we can be a little crazy at times.

I want to give a shout out  to our good friends, Elaine, Kelsey and Katia.  About a year and a half ago they brought Zachary, an  english bulldog, home from a shelter.  This was like their third or fourth dog from a shelter – maybe more.  They gave Zachary a good home and he wasn’t the easiest dog.  Recently, he became more and more agressive and they had to put him down.  I just know that he is in a better place – thinking about his family and sniffing all over the place.  Rest in peace – Zachary.