Whoever said I was normal?

Who's the boss? It's me, enjoying my new ball from Unleashed.

That's what great-grandma used to say whenever Mom questioned her about her atypical habits. Great-grandma loved me, so I invoke her comeback almost daily.

Take tonight, for instance. All of the neighborhood, it seemed—ok, four people, which is a substantial percentage of our neighborhood's population—was out walking, enjoying the evening air. All, except for my family.

Sure, they tried to put me on the leash and drag me down the driveway, but I was having none of it. If you've ever seen a two-year-old terrorize his or her parents, just picture that two-year-old as a 90-lb. toddler with four really long legs.

That's right.

I do like a good, old-fashioned passeggiata after dinner, but part of that old Italian ritual has to do with seeing and being seen. And mio piccolo quartiere just doesn't do it. No, after the evening meal, I yearn for more...is Wellesley Square too much to hope for? I think not.

So when they finally realized the walk wasn't happening and decided I would just have to suffer the consequences, blah, blah, blah, and Dad opened up the garage to get his basketball, I stood, Roman statue-like, by the car until Mom got the hint, opened up the hatch, and let me in.

I lay down in the back for a while, plenty long enough for them to realize that it might be a whole lot easier if we did things my way next time. Call it the new normal.

And the winner is...

Most recalcitrant? Most annoying? Loudest? Believe me, I could have
topped many categories, but the good people of Wellesley are too tactful.

I showed up at Wellesley's Wonderful Weekend Dog Contest just in time for the parade of contestants and awards, and unfortunately too late for showing off my fabulous tricks. Given my attention span, that was a good thing. I made my considerable presence felt, and the good people of the Wellesley Board of Health and Wellesley Animal Control, who sponsored the event, indulged me.

I met Dina, who knew me from my blog, and she recognized some of my antics. Her dog, Rennie, was awfully cute, but entirely too well-behaved, so I demonstrated a modified Plop O'Doom for him. Dina, for one, appreciated it, and in truth, I was a bit tired, having wreaked my usual havoc trotting around Lake Waban.

Dogs were everywhere and I wanted to play with all of them. One dachshund, hiding under a chair, did not appreciate my nosing around and told me so.  I had better luck with Liberty, an English pointer, who placed in the large dog category, and Cosette, a beauty with who won the diva award.

Toby, a furry little thing who sashayed up a storm, won the Dancing with the Stars award and also snagged a second place in the small dog category. Here he is waiting rather patiently for one of the treats that came in his goody bag.

Toby's so talented and truly worthy of his award.

Having bayed continuously since my arrival, my winning of the Ain't Nothing but a Hound Dog category was a slam dunk. No matter that I was the only entrant in said category; first place is first place.

I very much appreciated my goody bag from Petco Unleashed, which contained  super goodies: a frisbee, a bouncy ball, tons of my favorite treats, and a clip-on flashlight for my evening walks. All this for just showing up and strutting my stuff.

Afterwards, I had a good nap. Is there any other kind?

Resting on my laurels, literally.

Swell stuff—all weekend long

I make waves wherever I go: in this case, Lake Waban.

"It's the blogging dog!" one of my fans cried out as she spotted me trotting along the path around Lake Waban. Indeed. With her was the fetching Tessa, a black, silky-haired pup. Our meet-and-greet was one of the highlights of my day.

It's those kinds of community-building encounters that get me up and going every morning, and this weekend a whole bowlful of them are planned for our little swell town.

Speaking of swell, kudos to the best news source in town, The Swellesley Report. Always inventive, fun and informative, TSR also has the good sense to feature me every once in a while, and for that I am grateful. My handsomeness decorated a TSR story about the top dog names in Wellesley—mine is one of them, of course, but TSR lists all of the names. Literary Mom would like to meet Mr. Bingley and especially Mr. Darcy; Dad, who once wrote an article about a sea captain, might like to meet Ahab, or perhaps Clio, the muse of history, and definitely Lincoln; my music- and theater-loving sister, Cordelia or perhaps Cyrano, and definitely Wolfgang.

You can collect lots more dog names, and meet them, too,  at Wellesley's Wonderful Weekend, especially at the dog contest, from 10-11:30 a.m. Saturday at the field in front of the Warren Building on Rte. 16. I'll try to make it, but first I must head to Lake Waban, to meet my public. They're expecting me.

Cloudy over Madagascar? It's thunderstorm season for sure

I'll take a nice, dry dirt pile over a thunderstorm any day.

My former neighbor, the lovely Beamish, was an amazing predictor of the weather. She'd go in hiding, preparatory to a thunderstorm, if it was cloudy over, say, Madagascar.

Same here. So last week, I was heading out to Lilja field when I heard the unmistakable rumble of thunder.

Dad, whose auditory system is nowhere near as fine-tuned as mine, or even most humans, detected not a thing. So I closed my ears, lowered my tail, and turned around—a good walk shortened.

Needless to say, I've been crouching in my man cave for the last couple of nights. With more thunderstorms predicted for tomorrow a.m., it looks like it might be home, sweet home for the foreseeable future—unless that storm heads offshore. Antarctica should be far enough, and then I can go back to soaking up the sun from my dirt pile.

Getting bent out of shape, literally

Perhaps I have been concussed. Perhaps I have just been lazy. In any case, I've been away from my computer for far too long, enjoying this long stretch of sunshine and the pleasures of chasing chipmunks.

Question: have you ever bonked your way into a screen door? If not, I am here to attest that it really, really makes your body hurt. One feels like one's nose (that's the part that hit first) has permanently been patterned, sort of like an alligator skin handbag, only less desirably so.

You've already read about my penchant for, upon Mom's arrival, grabbing a boot and running outside with it at the first opportunity in the hopes that she will chase me and learn to play my game. So you'll understand two things: first, that the garden often has abandoned boots lying around, just right for toads to rest in, and second, that my velocity is rather unstoppable.

If velocity can be measured in units that express displacement over time, perhaps this photograph will show the results of  said displacement, which occurred when, having grabbed the boot, I sped my way straight through that screen door, which displaced itself smack onto the patio with a hound-size hole in it and a frame bent by a good kick of that boot.

It turned out to be the first day, and the last, that Dad slid the screen door into action.