I am full of love these days.  Pure unadulterated love.  Love for my new toys, received on that crazy holiday that is really not environmentally friendly with all the wrapping paper it produces.  Love for my new bones, which are so meaty and delicious that I continue to act a little like a hound of the Baskervilles when anyone approaches me while I’m chewing on them (I have improved, however – just ask my human mom).  Love for my friends, Tony and Mira, who tire me out whenever I see them.  Love for my little Sophie who trains me like a pro and cuddles me.  Love for my human mom who buys me said bones and who hasn’t been yelling at me as much as she used to.  Love for my big Chloe who is still so clueless about dogs that I’m able to act like a maniac with her because she has no idea how to handle my awesomeness.  Love for my human dad who calls me in his irresistible French accent, “Ma petite Truffe!”  Yes, he persists in using the feminine even though I’m very much a male.

Speaking of male, I think congratulations are in order.  I have discovered the joys of lifting my leg to pee. I have marked every tree between my house and the next town.  I mark trees even when I don’t have any pee left to pee.  I am the Dude.  My human mom can’t decide if this development is funny or annoying.  When I lift my leg gravity tends to cause my pee to fall back down on me.  Which is kind of gross, I admit.  But pee is sterile, so who cares?  I just lick it off.

I also have a deep, abiding love for snow.  I play with it, I eat it, I roll in it…it’s so versatile! Human mom thinks it’s funny to throw snowballs for me to fetch.  The first few times, I fell for her nonsense.  I turned in circles looking for the disappearing snowballs.  Not my best moments, I admit.  Eventually, I (after a couple of days) understood what was happening. I really get it now.  Ha ha. No need to rub it in.

In the photo above, I’m enjoying my water.  I love my water. The reason I’ve included this photo in today’s blog post is because I have a water story for you.  While I may have been a dumb ass for trying to find snowballs in the snow, my human parents sometimes rival me in the stupid category.

Yesterday evening I was uncharacteristically agitated.  At a time when I’m usually sleeping, I couldn’t settle down.  The kitchen gate no longer really supports my weight and I’ve figured out how to get past it when I’m desperate.  And yesterday was one of those times.  I really like my human dad.  He treats me pretty well for someone who didn’t want a dog in the first place.  But he’s not really attuned to my needs.  So there I was, whimpering like the puppy I still am.  He studiously ignored me for an eternity until I opened the gate, escaped from the kitchen and desperately ran to my human mom who was watching an episode of “Sherlock” on Netflix.

I managed to calm myself down for a couple of minutes, certain that human mom (aka my primary caregiver, aka she who “gets” me) would understand what I was trying to tell her.  But no.  Not a clue.  She ignored me, too.  Well, that’s not entirely true.  She pet me and tried to get me to stay on the couch so she could continue to watch her show.  But I wasn’t having any of it.  I started to behave like a monster.  And every time they put me back in the kitchen, I’d whimper some more, open the gate and escape.

After this cycle repeated itself four times, human dad had the not-so-brilliant idea to let me outside.  NO!  If I needed to go outside, I would have rung the bells.  Give me some credit, for crying out loud.  Finally, after exasperated human mom returned to her show yet again, human dad came into the kitchen and looked down at my water bowl.  And it was EMPTY.  And a lightbulb in his small but well-meaning brain went off.  And he filled my bowl with fresh water.  FINALLY.  I wasn’t going to die of thirst after all.

The irony of this story is that human mom was watching “Sherlock.” As in Sherlock Holmes.  As in the master of deduction.  You’d think she’d have learned something from the weird-looking, yet oddly captivating, Benedict Cumberbatch who solves all those mysteries. Apparently not.  When she came into the kitchen and human dad told her what had happened, I saw the lightbulb go off in her small but well-meaning brain (yes, she and human dad are well-matched). As she realized how brilliant I was for attempting to communicate my dehydrated state to them, she said, “Oh! He wanted more water.”  No shit, Sherlock.

As 2013 draws to a close, I’d like to take this opportunity to wish all of my loyal readers a happy and healthy 2014. I, for one, am very excited to see what the new year has in store for me.  As long as it brings good bones, good toys, good friends and lots of good water, I am sure it will be a most excellent year.