June 10th

I'm up early today - bowling at Juan de Fuca.
11C Cloudy but supposed to clear off.
Set up everything yesterday for the Silent Auction we have organized, then last evening at Grandson's play/concert.
Had a good turnout on here yesterday - hope you are enjoying It's a Dog's Life.

From that moment or possibly from when he picked me up our relationship was born; a relationship that had a few petty bumps along the way but lasted all my life and beyond.

  The three adults all agreed that it was a fine name, they turned and started to visit with each other, my new friend and I proceeded to get really acquainted.

  At first he was very careful and seemed afraid that he might hurt me.  But I was ready for a bit of rough stuff so I had to teach him how to play my style.  It wasn’t long before we were outside and rolling around on the grass and leaves.

  Grandma as I now knew she was to be called only stayed for a couple of days as these new humans that I had adopted lived in a very small house and sleeping places were apparently difficult.  I sometimes wondered how they would have made out with a total of twelve occupants in a basket as I did in the beginning.

  That day I learned that John’s mother was called both Mom and Violet but that was a bit difficult and I quickly came to think of her as Mom.  John’s dad was also called John but often he was called John senior, John called him Dad but I settled on thinking of him as Senior, after all he was the biggest and after Grandma was the oldest.

  Those first few days had their difficult moments, everyone seemed to object to me answering calls of nature wherever I might be standing. At first I resisted the idea of always going outside but then they started giving me a whack and when I still refused they rubbed my nose into what I had done. Fine! If that’s they way they wanted to play the game, I would go outside.  Once I had decided to go along with the idea, I woke them up a few times to be put out.  Hah, there was some grumbling about that but one night they left me out so I then decided to change tactics.  After everyone was asleep, I found an old shoe or was it a slipper? Doesn’t matter, I found it and I chewed it into pieces.  The next day there was some scolding but that night I found the mate to the first was in my bed.  I chewed on it for a bit but somehow the challenge was gone so I left some of it for another day.

  The days just sort of blurred for a while, one day was like another but one day, it must have been two or three months later, John and I were out wandering about. I found and started following some enticing smells and John tagged along behind. After a little while we passed through a thick patch of small trees and I heard John calling me and telling me to wait for him.  It was a tough decision but I stopped until he caught up, would you believe it – he was blubbering!

  “Jerry where are we, where’s home?” he cried.

  I tried to reply but just couldn’t squeeze the words out, so I just looked at him and wagged my tail.  Then with a flash of inspiration, I turned around and pointed my nose to where I was pretty sure home was, then thinking at him as hard as I could I tried to think him into holding me by my scruff. You know what? It worked, it actually worked! He was still snuffling but he grabbed me by the loose skin on my neck and let me lead him. In only a few minutes we were out of the bush and there just a short distance away was our home!  I will say that he was gracious enough to give me a hug and thank me. 

  I learned a lesson that day; there was some opinion amongst the humans that he was my boss (or master) but I would always remember that although maybe he was technically my boss, I was his guardian.