Merlin's Diary: November 2010

Well, this month we did the whole Halloween thing. I dressed up like an un-PC Indian by wearing one of Mommy's older brother's Indian Guides headdress and plastic bear claw necklace. People liked my outfit and I didn't cause anyone to cry or run away like I did last year. I only helped open the door for the first half of trick-or-treating and then I decided I was done. This was fine with Mommy and she let me sleep on the couch. Then around the last hour I wanted to go out so Mommy let me out and I got upset when trick-or-treaters came to our house and didn't come to the back gate to say hi to me no matter how much I yelled at them to come see me. We didn't get as many people this year as last year and most came in the first half of the night so most of them got to see my costume.

We had that time change thing this month too, but I was a good boy and didn't get upset and throw up in the house. I have also stopped waking Mommy up at 5:30 to tell her I'm hungry. I just wake her up at 4:30 or so to tell her to move over so I can have the warm spot in the bed. I like the cold weather, but I also like the warm spot on the bed. Mommy says it isn't nice to do that, but I'm old so I get my way.

Mommy made me wing lights this month. You can see and read about them in my previous two blogs if you haven't already. I need the lights because it is so dark when we take our evening walk. One evening Mommy forgot to put the lights on me and her and we took our walk and Mommy didn't see a bad spot on the sidewalk when we were doing our power-walk end of our walk and she fell down hard. She slid along the sidewalk, scraped off the palms of both her gloves, got a skinned left knee with a HUGE bruise that covered the whole joint and a smaller bruise on her right knee. When she stopped sliding she rolled over onto the parkway and lay there for a minute or so. I helped by standing over her and staring in her face with my nose right up to hers. She told me I was a very helpful dog after she got up and we didn't do any more power-walk for the rest of the way home. I've been helping the knees heal by licking them whenever she is in the bathroom.

I got sore this month too because Mommy was using the leaf blower. I think the leaf blower is very exciting and I have to run around the yard full blast about a dozen times when she first turns it on. Mommy says I'm getting too old to do those crazy sprints and that is why my legs and back have been aching for the past week or so. What does she expect me to do? Ignore it?

I got to go to Grandma and Grandpa's house this month. Mommy was going to something called an opera with Grandma and it was a long one so I stayed with Grandpa to keep him company. I got so excited when I found Grandma upstairs that I stood at the top of the stairs and barked at Mommy. Mommy agreed it was exciting, but said I didn't need to yell at her.

I made Mommy laugh this month too when we took a short car ride to run errands. I decided to ride on the passenger's side of back seat instead of the driver's side for some reason and when Mommy turned to see how I was doing at a stop she noticed that I was sitting like a human. I was sitting on my butt, with my legs straight out in front of me, bent at the knees with my feet in the foot well and I was kinda leaning against the door with my right arm on the arm rest. She said she really wished she had her camera with her. If she'd upgrade her phone she wouldn't have these problems, but she doesn't listen to me about these things.

I met some new dogs this month too. They are little spotty dogs called Cavalier King Charles spaniels. They are the same color as my former girlfriend Kachina was and much smaller than me so I liked them right away. The boy is called Max and the girl is Jen. We see them on our morning walks and we make our Mommies stop so we can talk to each other for a while. They aren't the running around kind, but they are good sniffers.

Speaking of Kachina, I found out that Kachina's former Mommy sent her boy back to the breeder too. Mommy says that isn't true. He actually went to a boarding school and will probably be back in May. We were wondering why we never saw him on any of our walks this fall. We aren't very fond of sending your critters off to have other people train them up, but Mommy thinks this will probably be good for him. We hope he likes it at the school.

Finally today Mommy and I heard sandhill cranes this morning and when we looked up there were about 100 cranes flying south over our house! Then about 15 minutes later another 100 flew over and then about another 1/2 hour later another 100!! We have NEVER seen that many sandhill cranes at one time. I guess they all decided it was time to go to Texas for their winter vacation.

Have a great Thanksgiving everyone and don't eat any turkey bones. They aren't good for you, but eating them does mean that you get to eat a 1/2 loaf of Wonder Bread afterward, so it is extra tempting to do so.

Mommy saw these lights at the Container Store and she bought them for me.

She thought they were nice because they light up two ways, have spring clips and can swivel in all sorts of directions. So, they have taken the place of my original headlights. The original headlights had the disadvantage of being easy for me to turn off because they were pop lights, and, because they were held on with Velcro, rub off. These lights aren't as bright and I don't cast shadows when I'm wearing them, but they still make me visible. Mommy says when I'm wearing these new lights I look like a techno-angel so they are definitely wing lights not headlights. Here is me wearing them: