OK OK so I made a mistake....

I'm a big dog. I can admit when I'm wrong.

I have an apology to make. It's to John. John the first, John Junior, and Johns the 3rd, 4th, and 5th.

Remember in my last post when I said that I was the first hotel dog on the island? Well, that was a lie. Not really a lie, I didn't actually know that at the time, but I have learned through the woofvine that John the 5th who lives at the Waddling Dog near Saanichton, wasn't the first dog to do so. That honour belongs to John the first, the basset hound who was the resident dog from way back in 1990 until 1998. See, how could I have known? That was way before I was born!

It turns out that their hotel has had five basset hounds working for them over the last 20 years, all of them named John. Anyways, I'm sorry for saying that I was the first. But there's a big difference between John and his successors and me. They all lived at their hotel full-time, 24 hours a day. Not me, oh no siree. I work regular 40 hour weeks and then I go home in the evenings and on weekends. So I'm the first dog to do that, anyways, work like a human.

And work it is, I tell ya. Here I was, feeling all bad for slighting the basset hounds up the road and trying to stay on my best behaviour. Well, this female human came into lower Georgia and sat at one of the tables and proceeded to pull out an apple-bran muffin and place it on one of the tables. Right in my face.

I could have snatched it when she wasn't looking. I was torn with the devil dog on one shoulder just saying to go for it and the angel dog on the other shoulder saying that I should just walk away. So I compromised. I casually wandered over to the human and ever-so-gently put my chin on her lap, my beautiful brown eyes gazing up at her longingly. Please, just a bite, that's all I ask...

Did it work? Um, no. She ate the ENTIRE thing, breaking tiny pieces off and passing each one past my nose for me to catch a whiff before popping them into her mouth. I left my chin on that silly human's lap for nearly 30 minutes of agonizing pain and all for nothing!

Karma, is this your way of getting back at me?

Turkey Bones and the Times-Colonist

Do you know what is great about being a dog around holidays?

Everybody is running around trying to arrange all sorts of things, planning big meals or trips to visit friends and family, cleaning their houses to impress visitors, and other human nonsense like that. The kids are home from school which of course means more chances for playing fetch outside or a bit of roughhousing or ear scratching indoors. Just having more humans around the house is always fun, as humans can provide endless entertainment with their silly goings-on, and I get to eavesdrop on lots of conversations.

But the absolute best part of holidays is that humans are so easily distracted. This means that we dogs are provided with the perfect opportunities to get away with things that we couldn't do otherwise (unless you are super sly like me) like, oh, nick a few sweets from the coffee table when nobody is in the room. Or score a couple of bones - ham bones yum! turkey bones extra yum! and head on out to the backyard to hide them away for the upcoming leaner weeks. And of course when people get sick of all the extra turkey, I always get to sample a few more bites, totally legit.

I think humans should invent more holidays.

What else has been going on in my world, you ask? Well, did you see me in the newspaper a week ago? OK, OK, I wasn't actually the one in the picture, that was some juvenile other lab from some other hotel, but they did come and interview us too! This was of course great for stroking my ego, but at the same time it made me wonder if I'm getting old. Am I getting old? Or are humans just a bunch of suckers for a photo of a puppy? Maybe the cameraman forgot to bring his camera when they came to interview us? Yeah, come to think of it, that must be it...

Here is the story in case you missed it:

http://www.timescolonist.com/travel/Cliff+finds+hotel+work+life/3607882/story.html

At least they got the part about me being the first one correct. Hey there Cliff, if you need any pointers then just howl.