Count your blessings, and Happy Thanksgiving!

While I forlornly chewed on an ancient bone, my folks sauntered off to the country to catch a bit of the Norfolk Hunt Club's annual Thanksgiving Day hunt. The pageantry! The rural setting! The glorious colors! The sound of the bugle! The baying of the hounds! They went on and on about this wondrous event, rather than counting their blessings that they have moi, a genuine foxhound, right here in their own home.
In fact, one would think they have had quite enough of hound baying, with no need to go somewhere else to hear it.

Showing off my stuff.

Last week Mom was threatening to send me off to the club's kennels, somehow forgetting that they most likely wouldn't have me. Who knows what I did: she was mad. "You'll have to fight for your food with dozens of other dogs! You'll have to sleep on the floor! And if it rains, you'll still have to go outside!" Eventually, she simmered down, when she realized how lucky she is that I'm part of the family.

That could be me, right at the front.

So just to show you all that I could run, right along with those other pups, I'm posting a pic of me in full swing. Also one of the hunt, because even though I didn't get to go, it does sound pretty special.

X-rays show I swallowed something I shouldn't have

I'm now feeling well enough to go on regular walks.

You know things aren't good when the vet opens up a discussion of your physical health by saying, "If you have unlimited funds..."

What Dr. Wolfus was suggesting was that me and Mom head up to Tufts Veterinary Medical Center, get me an emergency ultrasound, and find out just what that lumpy thing is in my belly. Or, we could wait and see if it's merely an upset tum.

Because it was bad enough getting wrestled onto the table to have a couple of x-rays, plus being made to have my weight checked (a svelte 84 lbs, in case you were wondering), we decided to wait. Plus, it was our first time seeing Dr. Wolfus, who in spite of his scary name, is exceedingly kind, gentle, and needless to say, given that I can't imagine a more difficult patient, patient.

I thought back to see which delicacy might be causing such distress. People do toss the most delicious, yet inappropriate, foodstuffs on the ground. On Sunday, I was trotting about in Wellesley Square and snuffled something under some leaves. It smelled so great that I didn't even look to see what it was. Mom immediately opened my alligator-like toothed hinges, one jaw in each hand, and looked deep inside. Nothing—already gone.

So neither of us knows what exactly I consumed. We're waiting for the radiology report. Keep your paws crossed that it's nothing too serious.

Update: All is well, and I am heading back toward full beastliness. Thanks goodness!

Posh new dog collar, leash and more on the way —just for moi!

"You may have extra hardware," warns a slip of paper on those put-it-together yourself sorts of things. Well, I do. Lots and lots of extra collars, leashes, harnesses that either are worn out, don't fit well, or Tucker-escapable. That's not including the so-called chew-proof stuff that I chewed through long ago.

Is this guy sneering at my hardware?  His isn't so great, either.

So Mom sent an SOS to Bob over at Handcrafted Dog Collars in good ole North Carolina, not far from my birthplace in the sunny South (Carolina, that is). Bob is plain old fun to talk to and got some laughs out of my doggone behavior. He even spent two days trying to think up a new design that would suit a stubborn hound like moi, before he realized it was an impossible task. Nothing, and I mean nothing, has been designed, built, thought up, dreamed, nightmared, that would in any way blunt my signature quality.

If I'm going to be stubborn, Mom figured, I might as well do it in style. And if you looked at my photo a couple of posts ago, I am over-hardwared. Prong collar, recommended by Elaine Stern, partly because a leash on a regular collar slips right off my slender little head, handsome though it is. Radio collar, also recommended by Elaine, for my famous stubbornness. Then, the collar that holds my tags. Too much stuff.

Bob is going to make something that goes just perfectly with my awesome coloring—dark saddle tan with black accents. Quite the step up from my mismatched gear. He makes everything himself in Wilmington and recently was putting together something fancy out of alligator leather for some lucky pup. He can do stingray, ostrich, shark, but I'm fond of beef, so I'm good with the cowhide. Thanks to Bob, not only will I be safe and comfy, I'll be stylin'.

Another pet-people book? Pitooey to the plethora!

I'm a contemplative kind of guy and don't do puppy cute.

You know that the genre exploring the dog-human bond from the human standpoint needs to be over when even I say, "Enough!" That's how I felt when I read reviews of Jill Abramson's book, The Puppy Diaries, so that while her tale may be perfectly fine, and I'm sure very sweet, I just can't take any more.

Apparently, Bruce McCall feels the same way. In the Nov. 14 New Yorker, in a Shouts & Murmurs column titled Pet Books Proliferate, McCall takes off on a quote from Abramson's book and explores people's deep relationships with a special earthworm, a withered spider plant, and an extremely cute potholder. All meet a sad, but touching end.

Now, I'm fascinated by science's attempts to demystify the canine psyche. I'm all for research. But no more cutesy memoirs, please. However, don't you think there's room for a book exploring the canine-human bond, from the canine perspective? I certainly do.

Boot camp: brutal, but effective

Grateful? I don't know, but my profile is awesome.

"It's like Cesar Millan came to Wellesley and worked a miracle!" Mom squealed. Now, Mom is prone to exaggeration, so I must tell you that while Cesar the Great did not show up at our door, he's got an unofficial East Coast counterpart.

I was the dog who wouldn't go. I wouldn't go forward, I wouldn't go backward. Tons of products exist to keep dogs in check. But what was the answer to get me to go? Mom despaired while I ruled.

The answer turned out to be Elaine Stern of The Grateful Dog (there's a misnomer!) Elaine doesn't come with a camera crew, and you don't have to submit audition videos to validate that you're a genuine worst case. Having known me from her puppy training classes, Elaine didn't need any proof of my stubborness. In fact, she had probably been expecting Mom's frantic pleas for some time now.

Given that Elaine's been visiting over the last month, putting me through my paces, and with Mom trying (valiantly, but not so successfully) to follow up, I've been exhausted. Hence, my less frequent posting. Frankly, if it weren't for the call of the food bowl, some days I would have rather stayed in bed. Dad, as always, remained on neutral ground, wisely staying out of the process.

As part of my training, Elaine took note of lots of things: the flipped-up couch cushions, my eating habits, my weight,  my sleeping places. Among other keen observations, she felt I was a bit tubby. "He's not in any shape for hunting right now," she said, not that I would dream of it. "He wouldn't get very far." She did, however, approve of my beds, all of them: Serta Perfect Sleeper, double; Sealy Posturepedic, single; armchair, large. "Big dogs need to be off the floor."

As a result of boot camp, I now condescend to an afternoon walk in my very own neighborhood. Before, a steak could have been on the front steps, the door open all the way, and I would have just looked askance while lolling in the front hall. Now, I get up and head out, like a regular dog.

Too bad Mom didn't make those videos. Because if I had been on TV, I bet I would have my own driver right now, taking me wherever I wanted to go. No walking required.