In Which Sarah Beagle Goes Back To Bed

I am a sleeping in kind of hound dog. At 5 AM when I burrow under the covers with Mom, I am perfectly content to stay in bed sleeping for hours and hours. Even if Mom gets up, I don't mind staying in bed.

Olive Badger, meanwhile, jumps out of bed as soon as Mom sits up. She does not want to miss a single thing Mom does, especially if there is a chance that Mom is taking an early morning walk. Sarah Beagle gets up too, because frankly, with Olive and her, it is monkey... see monkey do!

I'll get up, but only if I know for sure and true that we are walking. And after walking our little paws off for at least 1.5 miles, I come home, eat my breakfast, and sack out on the couch, while Olive takes the other couch and we nap.

Sarah Beagle goes back to bed.

If Mom's bedroom door is open and Sarah wants an anytime of day nap, she goes back to bed. I can't tell you the number of time we've heard Mom's startled explanations when she forgets that a dog might be in her bed.

I keep telling Sarah if she just sided with me, and stayed in bed even when Olive Badger gets up, we could nestle down and sleep.....but she can't resist the siren call of an Olive Badger.

Or the siren call of Mom's bed when she's tired and ready to nap!

Best Camping Ever

I've done quite a bit of camping. My family loves to throw things in the tent trailer and take off for parts unknown, but my favorite camping trip we do is practically in our back yard!

When we drive outside of town to Grandpa and Grandma's place, and park our trailers in the field and dogs and kids tumble out and we get to run unfettered by rules of leashes and tie outs and calls from worried parents of "don't go too far", it is absolute heaven.

The smells, the fields to explore, the trails to follow, the bits of pancake and bacon and whatever else my soulful begging eyes can plead for.....

I didn't want to leave! Dad may have had to chase me a bit to get me in the truck. I understood one of my cousins crying as he was put in their van. I felt the same way. Mom says we'll do it again next year.

Is it too early to start my count down? Only 364 days to go!

Thoughts On Turning Six

Happy Birthday to Me!

I took a walk this morning, I basked in sunlit driveway, I ate banana bread, I had a bath.

Well, the bath wasn't fun, and as Mom started cleaning the bathroom I could tell she was thinking if she was going to scrub the tub, she might as well make it really dirty first and wash three dogs....She seems to be on a kick this summer to have squeaky clean dogs.

I played chase with my girls, I helped Mom as she weeded the flower beds, I made sure our property was intruder free.

And if I can have one more bite of banana bread tomorrow, I will call this the best birthday ever!

I'm six years old, and that's a good thing.

Mom Smells Like Puppies

Holy Moses, Red Alert! Mom smells like Puppies!

Like she might have been holding, snuggling, loving Puppies. Like she might have petted soft puppy fur and let puppy breath sniffle in her ear. Like she might have patted fat puppy tummies and rubbed her check against velvety puppy ears.

This could be bad news for us. Mom is a sucker for puppies.

Oh, the puppies weren't Beagles?

We are safe then. Mom is a sucker for Beagle puppies. And sometimes, small Badger like puppies, but we're stocked up on those things right now.

Right, Mom?

She agrees. Whew!

Two For Smell, One For Sight

Mom thinks it is so funny to walk the three of us and watch how we take in our surroundings. Sarah Beagle and I are all about the scents and smells along the trail. We put our noses to the ground and our tails are up and we make a snuffle noise the more intriguing the scent is.

Olive Badger is a sight dog. She spends all her walk looking around, mostly on the look out for birds. She thinks she can catch a bird and does her best to fulfill that destiny.

The three of us are rarely on the same game plan. The times that Sarah and I are pulling hard to discover the source of a fascinating smell, Olive is being dragged along for the ride, not at all sure what has us so excited. The times that Olive is desperate to chase the bird she is watching, Sarah and I are not interested.

And since it is two against one, Olive Badger is on the losing end of this tug of war.

Sadder still, in Mom's opinion (not mine because I have to share with Sarah already) is that Sarah and I find things to eat. Be it bread or spilled mocha or something too disgusting for Mom to think about, we will sniff it out and eat it before Olive has a chance to see it.

She's too focused on birds. I know badgers usually have a great sense of smell and poor eyesight, and maybe I should change Olive's name to Olive Birddog, but she is quite fierce and prefers to be known as Olive Badger.

And since she is the best watch dog in our family, I think she can keep what ever name she wants.