Here I am in Regrade Dog park, same as the last post. Andy is offering me a treat. Being a dog trainer, he insistts that I sit politely. There’s another dog watching but I’m the focus of attention, as is appropriate for a Canine Urban Princess like me.

Well, why wouldn’t I? My mom read somewhere that obedient dogs have higher self-esteem. “A good sit,” she says, “gives you pride and self-confidence.”

If that’s true, I’d say, I have got to be the most confident dog on the planet. Well, okay, I’ve got a way to go. But who gets all those compliments when I ride on the bus on my mom’s lap? And who’s better at “sit for treats” than I am?

Andy’s one of my best friends and he wants to call his training service Dog Buddies. My mom’s not so sure. She was muttering about keywords and being unique, whatever that is. I think Andy’s unique.  He’s definitely one of my buddies.  I’m a dog. What’s to discuss?

Here I am in Regrade Dog Park, along with a bunch of other dogs. As you can see, we are all negotiating for treats. I’m more enthusiastic than anyone else.

Andy is a dog trainer who’s just opening up his dog training  and dog sitting business in Seattle’s Belltown. I adore Andy. When he comes to the park with his two large chow mixes, I drop everything and rush over to say hello. (I mean that literally. Usually I have something in my mouth. The most mentionable is a tennis ball.)

Andy’s dogs are totally obedient. My mom sees them everywhere, unleashed, always obeying Andy. He can say, “Wait over here,” and they wait. I don’t think I’ll ever reach that level. My mom is negotiating with Andy for some training sessions, though. Just what i’ve always wanted.

Sometimes I get displaced from my own blog. Here’s what happened.

“Gracie, here’s a really lucky dog,” my mom said. “This is Rocket. I was walking up Virginia from First Avenue on my way to the gym. As I walked by a store, I did a double take. Was that a dog on a cushion? In the window? A live dog?”

My mom was behind schedule. She had to go to the gym and the massage therapist, but she stopped and went inside. Sure, it was a live dog. She asked if she could take a picture. Now that she’s got one of those phones with a camera, there’s no stopping her.

Rocket is one lucky dog. He gets a soft cushion on his own chair. Unlike me, he’s not competing with a cat for the same small space. See the previous post and you’ll understand what I mean.

Nobody bothers Rocket. Not a cat in sight. He gets to look out the window in between naps. All kinds of people walk by and walk in. He has a real job greeting all the customers.

“You’ve got a job too,” my mom says. “I work at home. You make me take breaks and go outside every single day. You make people smile on the bus. You give me a conversation piece. As your Uncle Lance likes to say, you’re an accessory.”

Yeah, yeah. I have a good life. But I still say that Rocket is one lucky dog.

Sometimes my mom embarrasses me. She can be shameless. Yesterday we went to the Queen Anne Branch of the Seattle Public Library. Mom was on her way to the Queen Anne Community Center so she could throw a couple of pots.

The Queen Anne branch is rather conservative when it comes to admitting dogs. They won’t let me in. Period. One of the library clerks whispered to my mom, “Just say she’s a service dog. We aren’t allowed to ask questions.”

Yeah, mom. That’s a good idea. But my mom is afraid she’ll get caught. So she ties me to the railing, very securely. Today she was hesitant because a man was sitting there with this big poodle. My mom suspected that I would be totally distracted and would manage to escape. Well, I might try. I’m a friendly dog who’s always eager to make new friends, canine and human..

So she asked this nice man if he’d mind holding my leash while she ran inside for a minute. My mom has no problem asking total strangers to hold my leash for a few minutes. She figures everybody will adore me. She’s usually right.

I like this idea much better than just being tied to the post, even for a few minutes. I got to meet this really nice dog, Daisy.

As you can see, Daisy and I hit it offl We were getting along just fine till my mom came out with her trusty camera phone. She took a couple of pictures before we headed off to the pottery room so she could make another boring cylinder.

My mom’s apartment isn’t huge. But we have lots of room. We have

2 dog beds

1 fuzzy cat bed that I like to use myself

1 kitty condo with room for two cats

2 cat cushions: one on the sofa and one on my mom’s bed

1 dog cushion on my mom’s bed

1 dog crate

Do you get the idea? We have lots of room to spread out.

So why does Ophelia have to demand my spot on the couch? Earlier you saw her sitting next to me, on my turf. Now I’ve taken up all the available space so she’s just hovering nearby. She’s a smart cat. She knows eventually I will leave to go for a walk. Then she takes over.

Notice our body language. When you’re a dog or a cat, that’s all you have. See how I’ve occupied the entire end of the couch? My paws even hang over the edge.

Ophelia’s sitting up very straight with her tail wrapped around her ample self. She’s not asleep. She’s fully awake and aware.

“Any minute now,” she seems to be saying, “this couch will be mine.”

A couple of weeks ago it was freezing cold when we went to the dog park. As usual, I went naked. My mom doesn’t believe in coats for dogs.

“The vet says you don’t need a coat if you’re not shivering,” she told me.

To be fair, she applies the same philosophy to herself. She doesn’t buy clothes unless she absolutely has no choice. Sometimes I don’t want to be seen in public with her.

Here’s one of the park regulars, Sue, with her dog Jack.

“Aren’t they adorable?” my mom said. She didn’t have her camera so she tried to take a picture with her new cell phone. If you’ve been reading this blog, you won’t be surprised to learn that it took her a couple of weeks to figure out how to get the photo from phone to computer. But she did.

They look cold, don’t they? As soon as Mom took this picture, they were gone.

My mom came across an entry in Martha Stewart’s blog, featuring a series of photos of an unusual house plant and some not unusual cats.

“One of Martha’s cats looks a lot like Ophelia,” my mom exclaimed.

My mom likes Martha Stewart. She says Martha Stewart graduated from the same college she did, Barnard College, but Martha was a few years ahead of my mom.

Maybe Martha Stewart’s cat bears a passing resemblance to our own Ophelia. Look at the picture and then you can go to Martha Stewart’s post and decide for yourself.

But who cares? When it comes to domesticity, my mom is the polar opposite of Martha Stewart. She has absolutely no gift for homemaking. Our apartment is decorated in Early Graduate Student, with a liberal addition of cat hair.

“Who cares?” my mom says. “When we have a dog crate in the living room, we’ll never have an elegant home.”

Uh-oh. That’s my crate we’re talking about. I like having my crate right there, where I get to keep an eye on everything. Elegant home? Fine for other people. I just need a quiet spot to nap.

More to the point,

My mom showed me this book: Saving Cinnamon by Christine Sullivan. She just reviewed it for Amazon (although she didn’t get it as a review copy; this time she checked it out of the library).

Cinnamon is a brownish-haired dog who looks sort of like a retriever from the cover. But inside she looks more like some kind of cattle dog. As a very young pup, Cinnamon took refuge on a military base in Afghanistan, where she became the unofficial mascot of the soldiers and sailors who were stationed there.

She sounds a lot like me. I’m the kind of dog everybody wants to pat. I make friends everywhere we go. When we ride the bus, total strangers come up and talk to me. At least half a dozen people greet me by name on the street. My mom has no idea who they are or how we met. Frankly, I don’t either, but they smell familiar.

My mom told me that Cinnamon got lost in Turkey on her way to being adopted by Mark, the author’s brother. Nobody knew where Cinnamon was for six long weeks. Christine tracked Cinnamon down through a network of animal rescue groups and arranged to have her flown home to Mark. Cinnamon had been abandoned by a nasty dog handler in a place that has no laws about dog ownership.

Can you imagine? My mom said the City of Seattle makes me wear a dog license which means she owns me. Well, she owns me as a dog, but of course I own my soul and spirit.

Cathy was quite impressed with Christine’s writing ability. Thank goodness! I’m the one who has to listen when my mom rants about bad writing, especially when she gets asked to review a book. She’s writing a book for authors who want to get their books reviewed on Amazon and she says writers like Christine need this information. Too many bad books get attention, she says, while good ones suffer.

Well, you could also say that about dogs, couldn’t you? But my mom’s in no mood to argue. She wants to make another cylinder before she goes out for the evening. And of course she had to remind me, “Gracie, you are one lucky dog. You have two dog beds, two cats to torture, your Aunt Sara, your Uncle Lance, and of course me, your owner. You didn’t have to spend 24 hours in a small crate to get home. Your spent about 2 hours in a nice car with your foster mom when you came here.”

I hate it when my mom gets logical. Time for another nap.