Lindsay, who was Dog Park Steward until recently, is exempt from the “No Treats” ban imposed by my mom. Lindsay likes to sit on the wall surrounded by a bunch of dogs. That’s her big black lab, Jasper, on the right. Jasper is an official service dog. He’s all trained and he looks awfully impressive when he’s wearing his tags.
Hmm…have you noticed a pattern to the recent pictures in this blog? All about treats. Is my mom trying to tell me something?
Here I am in Regrade Dog Park in Belltown, right in the heart of Seattle. It’s a warm Saturday afternoon. My mom wants me to get some exercise so I’ll be tired when she goes out tonight. So we walked over here. That’s over a mile, Mom. More like a mile and a half. I thought I was getting adopted, not joining a hiking club.
This nice man had a box of treats. I tried…and tried. But mom said, “No way. I don’t want Gracie begging for food in the dog park. We came here so she could get some exercise.”
I can be very persistent when it comes to treats. Mom thinks I’ll stop begging if I never get any reward. We all know: it’s an uphill battle.
My mom’s just getting around to posting all the photos she took of Linday’s birthday on Thursday, August 27th. Here’s Lindsay eating a piece of her own birthday cake, carefully ignoring the dogs who have their Eye on the Prize.
See the red arrow pointing to me? Yes. There I am, right next to Lindsay’s official service dog, Jasper, the black lab. See, mom, it’s not about the cake. We’re just wishing Lindsay a Happy Birthday. Anyway, don’t the rules say, “Bring food at your own risk?” Well, we’re the risk.
My mom has been feeling sad because the Downtown Dog Lounge closed its doors in Belltown. The location was so convenient. We could walk (and sometimes did). We could be there by bus in 10 minutes.
The staff were so nice to us. “They felt like family,” my mom says.
I used to go there almost every Sunday, while my mom went to work out at her gym. I would sit up front with the receptionist. I got spoiled by Summer, who’s my adopted big sister.
Everybody liked me. “Gracie gets along so well,” the staff told my mom. “She invites the other dogs to play but she doesn’t come across as aggressive.”
Aggressive? Me? Why would I?
One day my mom Cathy brought me in for a bath. When she came back, my nails were painted bright red. I finally looked like a real princess. Mom was a little mortified. “I hope nobody thinks we paid for this,” she said. But of course she told everybody we met, “Look at her toenails!” She even insisted we blog about the “pawdicure.”
Then when my mom had to go to the Emergency Room, my Uncle Lance dropped me off at the Dog Lounge. Summer was thrilled to find me there when she came to work the next day. She found me some terrific new dog food and charged Mom’s account. She made sure I had so many treats I didn’t miss home at all. They sent me home via dog taxi with a cute “Get Well” card for my mom.
And then there was the time a couple of years ago when Mom went out of town. (She hates to travel.) Of course I got to spend the night in the Dog Lounge. When mom came to get me, the staff person said, “Gracie was barking in her crate. She wasn’t happy. So I took her out and she slept with me.”
Or the time Cynthia said, “Gracie tells us what she wants. We put her in back and she comes to scratch on the door to come up front.” Well, of course. Cynthia knows how to treat a real princess.
Or Summer taking me to Ewe-topia so I could herd sheep. We had a great day together.
Or the time they dressed me up for Halloween and gave me treats on my birthday. (I got to spend Mom’s birthday there too, but she didn’t get any treats.)
Sure, the Dog Lounge has branches nearby. There’s one over on Elliott. To get there we have to walk through Lower Kinnear Park, which my mom says is dangerous. Or we could walk but there’s no sidewalk that goes directly there. Yep…you read that right. The sidewalk disappears. My mom opts for the park. “The odds of being attacked by a homeless person are a lot less than the odds of being run over by a car,” she says. “Maybe when we get a new mayor the city will fix Mercer Street.”
Then there’s Capitol Hill. We tried it last Sunday. “Forget it,” Mom said. “It’s a long trek to get there and gong home? The worst bus in Seattle and a TON of traffic. If I have to spend an hour getting you, I might as well take you for a walk to the Regrade Dog Park.”
But I know we’ll be back. My mom knows how much I like Summer and the rest of the gang. “Maybe every other week,” Mom says. “Or once a month at least. And then, Gracie, your bath…”
Yeah, I know. We’re both feeling sad right now. It’s like losing a family who moved away.
My mom Cathy woke me up from my nap today. “Look what I just read in an Examiner column,” she yelled, pointing to her laptop. I refused to budge so she told me what she read. And then I see why she got so mad.
You can read the whole thing for yourself, right here.
Accoding to my mom, some Examiner.com columnist praised the best Craiglist Ad of the Week. The ad was headlined: “Wanted: Someone To Make My Kids Cry.” Here’s the story:
A single dad was looking for an actor to pretend to be a dog walker. The dad had found a new home for the dog which was a “terror” who couldn’t be trained. This actor would take their cocker spaniel for a walk and return, pretending the dog had run away. In fact the dog would supposedly go to a new home. The actor would be there when the kids started crying. The actor would be pad $500 for about two hours of work.
Can you believe this? A cocker spaniel who’s terrorizing the family?
I’m a dog and I can tell this whole thing is sick. No wonder nice dogs like me end up in rescue.
Here’s what my mom wrote as a comment:
My mom wanted a picture with the water. So as we were leaving, she got Jake to take a picture of her with Scott, the club president. Scott looks happy because he’s getting married in a couple of weeks. My mom looks a little uptight because she’s within a mile of a camera. Even though she wanted this picture, she told me, “I belong in the Guinness Book of World Records for Least Photogenic Person on the Planet.”
I don’t know what she’s talking about. Guinness? Records? Planet? But I do know she was never born to be a model.
I, on the other hand…
I’ve been telling my mom she needs to get a life. Finally she listened. We went to the picnic of my mom’s alumni group. See, my mom went to a college called Barnard in New York. Barnard is part of Columbia so my mom gets to go to Columbia’s alumni activities.
This one was good because I got to go too. Here’s a picture of my mom and me with a bunch of other alums. My mom’s t-shirt says, “Friend Request Denied.” She wears it to social events, figuring people might ask her about her life on the Internet.
Notice how I hold center stage?
This is Meatball, a dog who lives in our building. He’s just a puppy so he’s in the cute stage.
Usually when I’m with another dog, I steal the show. “Gracie’s so cute,” everyone says. But Meatball is the ultimate scene-stealer.
He’s just a pup so I try to ignore him when he wants to play. All that young puppy energy! Too much for me. Anyway, I know what’s coming. Meatball is going to grow into a big 70-pound dog. They’ll be calling him Meatloaf, not Meatball. Then he’ll be way too big to play with me.
My mom’s not good with kids herself. She doesn’t even adopt puppies and kittens. I have to admit she’s a good dog mom but her maternal instinct isn’t quite all there.
Me too. But we have to admit: Meatball’s adorable.
My mom just bought a dozen eggs from the Dog Mountain Farm booth. She noticed they were selling bags of treats from last week, which was Dog Day at the Queen Anne Farmers Market.
“Good healthy treats,” she said approvingly. “Carrots. Veggies. No preservatives.”
“Delicious,” I said. “Worth a good sit.”
Last week the Dog Mountain folks were handing out treats. So this week I made a beeline to the booth. I moved right into my very best treat-accepting posture, which almost nobody can resist.
“Amazing,” my mom said. “Just one treat, ONE time, and Gracie remembers a whole week later. Now why can’t she remember the basics of walking on leash?”
Too many details, mom. Besides, it’s so boh-ring.
When my mom’s friend Bob came to visit, he remembered Creampuff. He had visited Cathy in New Mexico, when her
cats were Creampuff and Tiger.
Bob has always been very nice to Cathy’s cats. When she moved to New Mexico from Florida, he kept them for about six weeks till she got settled. Cathy was sure she’d never see the cats again but no such luck. Bob put them on a plane for Tucson and Cathy met them at the airport. They even managed to change planes in Dallas without getting lost.
Bob told Cathy, “You need to give Creampuff more attention.”
“No problem,” Cathy said. “I’ll send her to you. I bet there’s room in your luggage when you fly back tonight!”
Way to go, Mom! You’re finally catching on. This household would be greatly improved with one less cat.