My mom Cathy likes me to sit at the corner when we cross the street. Here we’re on our Big Walk and I’m demonstrating how obedient I can be.
Actually, that’s what my mom thinks I’m doing. In reality I’m looking proud and regal. I’m a proud pack member who’s guarding her owner. Nobody better mess with us.
From the back, I look a little bit like a retriever. What do you think?
Here’s another set of stairs.
I hope you’re impressed. Mom says, “This walk is so good for us, Gracie. Good for our quads and glutes.”
Earth to mom. Dogs don’t have quads and glutes. I’m just here to keep you out of trouble.
Mom wanted to include the jonquils in this shot. “Maybe spring will be coming soon,” she said.
Come on, Mom. It’s cold.
Last week my mom said, “Gracie, we’re going for a walk! We will take a bus to the top of Queen Anne Hill and walk down.”
Then, as she got ready, she said, “Hmm. These jeans are a little snug. We’d better walk both ways.”
Great. Her jeans feel tight so we have to walk? She couldn’t even begin to fit into those jeans six months ago. What’s her problem?
As usual, the mom wins.
Queen Anne is so steep, you can get there by stairs. We climbed…
Do you see those stairs?
My mom still gets excited when Ophelia eats. I can’t imagine why. She eats everyday…and most of the night, while we’re asleep. 
Oh well…here she is, digging into a plate of crunchies. The second plate is supposed to be for Creampuff, but nobody wants to get near Ophelia while she’s eating.
My mom has been busy all weekend, but she makes time for me to exercise. Yesterday we walked over a mile to a furniture store so she could buy a new bookcase. (She just gave away her old one on Craigslist. Too small, she said.)
“You need exercise,” she said. “I’m going out tonight.” And she did. She was off to the Symphony, humming the tune to the Idee Fixe of Berlioz’s Fantastique. (My mom is so proud of her new musical knowledge. She’s got a lot to learn, she says.)
Then today I played for two hours in the Dog Lounge with my best pal and adopted Big Sister, Summer. Summer wants to take Mom to the Ewetopia sheep-herding event next week.
Me? Herd sheep? My hair stands on end. I bet somewhere in my genes is a true sheep dog.
We’ll see. Mom says she’ll take off the time if we can work out the driving with Summer. I’m keeping my paws crossed. And very nice paws, too. Summer gave me a manicure. My mom says she’s long overdue for one herself.
“Just be glad I have so much work,” she said. “Somebody has to pay for your crunchies. And dog walks. And…” uh-oh, I know what’s coming… “your vet bills from eating JUNK.”
Time for a nap. And boy do I need one.
Look who’s taken up residence near Mom’s desktop computer. Mom’s favorite Computer Guru, the MacDaddy of Seattle, says cat hair won’t bother the desktop. Thank goodness!
Creampuff likes to sleep there. So we figure Ophelia just had to take over and establish dominance. Besides, it’s nice and warm.
We can’t figure out how she got up there. Ophelia’s not a jumper. She prefers hiding out in her cave.
This morning the weather was awful. My mom dropped me off in the Dog Lounge with instructions to, “Make sure she gets LOTS of exercise.” I did and I’m wiped.
So who’s daring to enter my turf on Cathy’s bed? This is where I get to take naps. Since when do cats share my space? 
Ophelia doesn’t get it. She’s the Queen Mother and I’m just the Princess.
Cathy caught me in this awkward pose. She tried to get a more dignified picture but she was so happy to see Ophelia looking directly into the camera.
Notice how my mom’s priorities have shifted. My blog gets the photo where Ophelia looks best.
Ophelia was saying, “I’m being polite and dignified. I don’t know what’s going on over there.”
Nothing’s going on. I’m just scratching an ear, for heaven’s sake.
Cathy skimmed through Made For Each Other: The Biology of the Human–Animal Bond, by Meg Daley Olmert. She didn’t get into all the details about oxytocin.
But here’s what she read to me (p. 212):
“In 1995 Friedmann (a researcher at U of Maryland) …found that dog ownership was the big survival factor in the first year following a heart attack. Of the eighty-seven subjects who owned dogs, only three died; nineteen of the non-dog owning patients did. When weighed aginst the other top survival factors (strengths of heart, absence of diabetes, and regularity of heartbeat), owning a dog gave a heart attack victim a significantly greater chance of being alive one year later.”
Yaay! See, I’m not just a cute accessory.
Of course, my mom pointed out, people who own dogs tend to live in places where they have more control over their lives. Maybe that’s the reason.
But no. Another study randomly gave dogs to stressed-out stockbrokers. Those who got dogs were healthier and reported fewer stress symptoms than the non-dog group, my mom said.
Well, I’m certainly not stressed. Come on, mom: stop reading about all this stuff and let’s get some sleep.
Someone sent my mom a book to review: Bark Up The Right Tree. She read parts of the book to me while I pretended to take a nap. Frankly, there’s just too much competition these days. Everybody and his dog wants a piece of the action.
This dog, Jessie, had a hard life. A child abused her (she doesn’t say how) and then she ended up in a shelter. Wow! Compared to Jessie, my life was easy. Nobody abused me. I ended up in a foster home right away. The foster mom wanted to adopt me but her family said, “We have enough dogs now.” So I hung out with them a few weeks.
My foster mom was a real salesperson. “She looks so cute playing with the puppies.” And, “She’s sitting on the rug, chewing her chew toys.”
“Does she chew anything else?” Cathy asked suspiciously. She was spoiled. Keesha, her First Dog, was a barker, not a chewer.
“Oh no, just toys.” They lied. Or maybe I was on good behavior for a few weeks.
Anyway, Cathy asked a lot of questions about how I got along with the resident cats. When she found out I didn’t eat them, she was happy. (Why would I eat cats? Yuk.)
Back to the book. Ruth decided she wanted a dog named Jessie. By then the dog Jessie had been moved to a foster home, thanks to a private rescue group. Jessie had an upper respiratory infection but she was mellowing. The rescue group listed Jessie on Petfinder as a Lab mix aged seven. (Hey, that’s where Cathy found me! Maybe dogs need to take Internet Marketing courses.)
Ruth originally gave Jessie her own room. Gimme a break. What dog wants to sleep alone? I had to sleep in a crate after I arrived here, but Cathy was right in the next room. And that Jessie is smart like me. We both taught our owners where we want to sleep.
Jessie’s owners were loving and sensitive. Cathy as an owner is much tougher. “My way or the highway,” she likes to say.
But Cathy’s a sucker for stories about dogs who were rescued. When she tells my story, she likes to dress it up. She tells my story to everyone on the bus, in the dog park and on the street. She wants to teach people how wonderful a rescue dog can be.
“When I had Keesha,” she says, “people thought she was a purebred. They’d ask what I paid for her. But everybody knows Gracie’s a mutt.”
What an attitude. I’m keeping my eyes closed. We CUPPIES have to maintain our dignity. I bet Ruth doesn’t talk about Jessie like that.
P.S. My mom said to read her review before you buy the book or give it away. Just click on the book cover.
Today the weather was fantastic – especially for Seattle. Sun and perfect blue sky,
Right after her teleseminar, my mom announced, “We are going for a walk!” At first I was thrilled. When Mom holds a teleclass, I have to hang out in my crate. I was ready to move.
But then Mom said, “Let’s walk to the top of Queen Anne Hill! I’ll drop some books off in the library and then we will turn around and come home.”
Oh no. What’s wrong with a nice bus? These hills are so steep they’ve got stairways.
“We’ll accomplish three things,” my mom said. “I’ll get exercise. You’ll get a walk. And I will drop off some library books in the Queen Anne branch, so I’ll have less to carry later.”
True. I’m not allowed in the Queen Anne library so Mom’s not tempted to check out even more books.
“And the stairs are so good for us! Good for our glutes.”
Earth to mom. Dogs don’t have gluteus maximi. We have legs and … I don’t know. Dogs don’t learn anatomy.
That afternoon I took a nice long nap in the sun. My mom said, “I wish I could join you. I’d love to curl up on the rug, in a patch of sunlight, and just sleep.”
Good thing she didn’t. Somebody has to work around here to keep everybody’s bowl filled with crunchies.