Me and my familypod are enjoying X-mas together. X-mas happens once a year. It is a time when the humans stay home a lot, and we wear silly hats and eat more than normal.  Then we all fall asleep on the sofa…

Zonkked at Xmas

Just thought I should sit down by the puter a little adn tell you the great news. I would have so much to tell you, but I don’t have much time because PAPPA IS HOME and I need to play with him A LOT. We mostly play frisbee and Toss-the-Rock, but sometimes I play “gimme-your-bagel” too…

Me- Spicey the blog dog

Getting ready for some cake

After the hurricane something nice happened. Mammas friend Ivan came to visit us for almost 3 weeks. Unlike mamma who gets up early and goes to work, Ivan sleeps late and then spends the mornings playing Frisbee with me. He is pretty good at tossing the frisbee and as far as humans go, he was extremely easy to train. He has two daugthers who also came over a few times to play with me. One day was their  13th birthday. That was a very nice day because they all made a cake and I got to eat some of it.

Soon after we moved in to the Oasis on the hill, before we even had unpacked our boxes really, something exiting happened. We were hit by Hurricane Omar! It was quite stressful on both me and my mamma and I lost 4 pounds, so now I am a skinny dog.

Mamma was working quite hard before the storm, She was spending a lot of time at her daytime job and when she came home late at night she dd not go to sleep but she was working with fixing and cleaning our new place. She was starting to look quite frazzled if you ask me. The weeks before the storm it rained hard and I was starting to think we woudl all float away. Mamma was driving Auntie Rueths truck alot and when I got to ride in it it was more like raining in the cockpit of a riverboat than in a car because the water was runnning so deep and swift on the “riverized” roads. The night before the big storm, they told us on teh radio that we woudl be hot by a trpoical storm. Mamma suspected that it woudl be more than just a storm, so whe was climbing up on the roof in the rain and tying tarps to try to protect our new nest. It was quite scary because mamma is the only human I have now that pappa is gone and Aunti Ruth doesn’t live with us anymore.

The next day mamma took me to her work! I have never been there before. I got to stay in her office. It was a strange place with many beeping and blinking machines. Mamma was running in and out of the office a lot and she was wearing yellow foulweather gear. In the evening it started to blow harder and it got very noisy. Mamma came to spend some time with me and the machines. Some other people also came to stay in the office for while. At about 10pm when the noise from outside got quite crazy mamma decided we had to go up to “the lobby” to be with the other humans. Oh Boy! We could almost not open the door and get out because it was blowing so hrd outside. Then mamma carried me thru teh parkinglot and she had a really hard time moving dur to the wind and it was quite scary. I thnk mamma was scared too, but we made it. In the lobby theer were many people. Mmam told me these people were not working but they were “guests” at mammas workplace. They laid in beds and played cards and mostly huddled together.  Many of them asked my mamma if they could scratch and pet me. I got scratched and petted a lot and everyne said nice things about me. I walked with my mamma on a tight leash everywheer she went. She was doing a lot of things with other people who also wore foulweather gear. Sometimes she helped some of the “guests”. It was a looong night and it was very noisy. We did not get to go to sleep until the next morning for a little bit.

In the morning we got up. Teh noise and wind had stopped. We went for a  walk. The palce looked very different from the day before. Many trees had fallen over and there were broken signs. The porch mamma had carried me down the night before was broken. It looked quite messy. I got my paws wet and dirty, but liked my walk anyway. The sun was finally shining.

Mamma had to stay and work all day and also the next night. We could not go home. Mamma did sneak out with her frind, she told me she had drove to see our boat and the Oasis. She was very happy that the boat was afloat, but told me that the OAsis was surroounded by fallen trees and was quite a mess.

We stayed one more night and day at mammas work until we finally got to go home. On the was hme we stopped in town and sadly saw many boats that had sunken.

 

Checking out the sunken boats in the Christiansted harbor after Hurricane Omar

 When we got home we had to climb trough trees and brances to get to our door. Our nest was full of water and leaves. It was not fun and mamma was working very hard to make it dry and habitable for us. She was quite grouchy because she did not get to sleep at all for about a week. I did not like all the bugs that moved into the house and I tried my best to help mamma chase out the bugs. I don’t think I like hurricanes all that much.

I have had a very busy summer and have not had time to blog. But many things happened. First my mamma brought out her suitcase and went off somewhere very far away called Papua New Guinea where I could not go with her. Instead I got to go on vacation to Andra and Carlos in Frederiksted. They are a lot of fun and I have my own room in their house. Carlos plays frisbee with me and Andrea feeds me goodies that I don’t normally get to eat. They have many dogs and even some lizards and I like riding in Andreas car.

When mamma returned from PNG we did go back to our nest at first but suddelnly mamma and Aunti Ruth started to pack all our things in boxes. The house became very disorgannized and things started to disappear. I got very worried about this and did not like it at all. Withing a month almost all things were gone. One day mamma took me to show me where all the things were. Then we started spending some nights over at that place. Soon we did not return to our old nest at all. Mamma told me we now live in the new place. I like the new place because there are many lizards and birds there and yo ucan see the ocean and the other islands, but I miss my friends ChiChi and Max a lot. I went to visit the neighbor dog but he chased me out of his yard. I still have to show him who is the Alpha Dog!

Yesterday mamma got up really early. She said she was going to go take pictures of a humans riding bikes. She udually doesn’t get up that early on the weekends and Sunday mornings we usually snuggle our pillows and have really long breaksfast together. I was kin dof bummed that I missed out on the Sunday morning bagels. However, when mamma came back a few hours later she did something on the computer and then she told me we were going to go for a walk over to and other house in our neighborhood because she needed to take the picture there.  I got to wear my pink leash, but mostly I did not wear it at all. I also brought my red ball with me. On the way mamma played with me and thrw the ball as far as she could on the big grassy fields. She doesn’t know how to throw the ball as far as pappa, but I still chased it. We we got to the house where we were going  we met Robert and Michelle and their two kids Miko and Mika. And their little friendly brown puppy. The puppy was fun and we sniffed eachother and I would have liked to stay and play with the puppy. However my puppysniffing fun was interrupted by Apollo the big black dangerous dog. I did sniff Apollo a little but he got too close to my mamma so I had to growl and snap a little. When that happened Robert who is Apollos human, told us that Apollo does not like other dogs and has [horror!!!!] already killed two other dogs! When mamma heard this she picked me up and carried me. I did not mind at all and I did stick my toungue out to Apollo a little. We said bye to the puppy and left before Apollo could make me into his afternoon snack. On the way back to our house we palyed with the ball again and I went to tease the big dogs and the two Cockerspaniels that are behind fences by running really close to them so that they could see me but not get to me. They were barking a lot and jumpping up and down, but they could not get to me. I Wwas so thirstly from opur walk that I drank a whole bowl of water whenwe got back and then I tool a nap on the balcony in the sun. It was a good Sunday!

 My mamma and pappa usually go to Sunrise service every Easter Sunday. Usually I stay home and watch them and listen to them from the balcony. This year pappa is not here, but mamma decided to take me along instead. She did debate for a while whether this would be advisable and I am probably one of the “suspects” that were mentoned in the last neighborhood newletter (something about large intmidating free roaming dogs) and she wasn’t enirely sure if she wanted the neighborhood to be able to make the connection between me and her. Anyway, as she loves me so very much  she decided to take me anyway. My Auntie Ruth also came along.  I got got wear my special pink Easter leash. The Sunrise service was doen at the ruins in our neighborhood where I sometimes go running with the big dogs. Usually the grass is high there, but now it had been cut. And usually there are no peeople there, but now there were many. They were all sitting in chairs, but we were standing at the back.  I don’t know exactly why we were there, but there was a lot of singing and one man at the front spoke a lot. He told us when we could sit and when we could stand. Sort of like when my humans tell me to “sit” and then when I do they give me goodies. We did “sit” and stand a lot and afterwards they did give us goodies from tent.  We had little sandwished with salmon, deviled eggs, tiny nibbles of quich, small tarts with berries and fruit cakes. The humans even got chocolate cookies.  I did get scratched by many little kids and mamma and auntie Ruth seemed very pleased when two of thesurfer dudes I sometimes see on the beach came over to scratch me.

Now let me tell you: When training humans you must be very persistent. They are smart creatures, but sometimes they are stubborn and they do require a bit of time and patience. However, if you just keep on training them and stick to the basics they will eventually “get it”. Trust me.

 The first task every human should learn is of course “feeding the dog”.

They usually do put dogfood in the gogfood bowl by instinct. At least most of them do. But it is more difficult to get them to feed the dog what the dog wants to be fed. For example, toasted bagesl with cheesespread. And peanut butter. 

First youj must find a human that has access to the foods you desire. You should get their attention by looking cute and hungry. You can also sit on their feet. Staring at them with big sad puppy eyes sometimes helps too. Barking or putting front paws on a table howvere often is conouner productive. Here is a picture of me haing located a human with access to food. At this stage I am successfully gainig the humans attention:

 Once you have located the human, you might sit up on your back feet. Most humans, especially those who have receltly been watching “Meercat Manor” on television have a soft spots for mammals that sit on their back feet. Most humans also undertand that this is the univeral sign for “time to feed the dog whatever you think you are about to eat”. In the example hereunder, not the intent stare which also is ver effective.

 Do not despair is your humans do not learn these skills immidiately. Just remeber ot be peristsnt and practise on a daily basis.

Our next lesson is going to be on training the humans on brusing  burrs our of the dogs fur.

The grass in our yard is high ad I have been chasing the frisbee. My mamma is not very good at tossing the frisbee very accurately and on Saturday she tossed in into the high grass where I had to go looking for it. When I came out I was covered in green Burrs. I looked a bit like a leprahaun (Leprahound?). Mamma tried to brush me but finally she gave up as the burrs would just cling to mr. I has pretty grungy form all my walks to the beach as well. So finally mamma decided to give me a bath.  I was very happy about this and jumped into the shower without any grumbling. Mamma sudsied me up with some wonderful shampoo and gave me a nice massage. After the shower we played “Torro Torro” with the bath towels and I enjoyed charding the towels like a little Bull adn rolling around in the soft bath towels until I was dry and fluffy. now I am so clean oand my fur is soft and shiny. I wish Pappa was here to see me and snuggle with me.

CATs are freaks. I have known this since I was a small puppy on ly one month old. My first encouter with a CAT was not happy at all. I did not know what a CAT was when I first saw one. All I saw was a furry animal approximately my size. I went tover and wagged my tail and wanted to play and make friends. the CAT, true to its nature, instead of playing, just swatted me on the snout with its sharp claws. Ever since I have known not to bee fooled by their appearance. They are just trouble!

Many humans like cats and keep them as pets. But my new Auntie who works with nature and wildlife conservation told me this morning that CATS are actually very destructive animals. She told me of reserch showing that  nationwide, rural cats probably kill over a billion small mammals and hundreds of millions of birds each year. Humans that keep CATS as domestic pets often think that their lazy fat good nature, docile, ever sleeping CATs are innocent. However,  these humans rarely know of the secret  nocturnal adventures of their belowed little innocent fuzzballs. They know not of the feroucious bloodthirty killing sprees that Fluffy and Cutie indulge in after dark. They know not of their merciless stalking of prey or the cruel game of catch and release.

The CATs just get away with too much. Just letting you know. You should keep your CAT locked inside at night. And just like many humans don’t like to have us DOGs walk through their yard, my humans (and I) do not like to have CATS walk through OUR yard.  So keep your CAT in your house at night and on your property daytime please.