I've always loved Christmas. It's so exciting with all the food smells, people smells, new toys, car rides, parties ... and extra treats! It makes us grin from ear to ear!

The times that Curlee and I get along best is when we're doing tricks. I do it because I like to do tricks. He does it because he loves food treats more than anything.

 

 

Curlee is part of our pack now. I wanted a girlfriend. But my leaders were afraid that she might get hurt. Our neighbour next door has a big, nasty girl dog, who likes to attack other girls, so they got me a brother instead. I'm old enough to be his great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather. When he showed up he was 8 weeks old, and smaller than me. I wasn't sure what he was at first.  But when he starting jumping all over me, I growled, and he backed off.

The day Curlee arrived, I felt like playing with my squeakie toy for the first time in a long time.
I'm not too old to play! Hey! Look at me!

Curlee was wild and always getting into mischief!
Here he is trying to bite my leader's bum while she's working in the garden ...

... so my leader put him in a pen in the shade to keep him safe while we did our chores.

Curlee didn't like being in the pen. He wanted to run all over the garden, dig, and eat stuff like dirt, worms, grass roots, twigs, leaves. bugs, and bird poo ... anything that he could find. Lucky for me, he didn't know how to get out of the pen quite yet.

I was glad that Curlee was in his pen because it meant that I could walk around without  him running into me at top speed. That hurts!

Curlee sleeps with us in the bedroom at night, in his crate, beside my basket. I think it must be a magic crate. For a while there, every night Curlee went into his crate to sleep, and every morning, he came out bigger. Two weeks after Curlee joined us, he was as big, and as heavy, as me.

Now he's bigger than me and he's still always trying to push me around. Sometimes, when I'm feeling really good, I stand up to him and growl and bark in his face. Other times, I try to ignore him, and the leaders make him stop bothering me.

Curlee and I are part of the same pack, but we don't have that much in common. We're both poodles, it's true. But we're as different as two dogs can be. They say I have the soul of a poet, and that Curlee is a jock. He's really strong, and a natural athlete. But I'm smarter and more sensitive.

 
 
 

May: My fur barrel

My hair is so long that I look like I'm wearing a fur barrel!  And yes, I know I've got 'basket hair' from sleeping on my ponytail. I have to wear my hair up if I want to see.

It's the end of May, but I still need my winter coat because it's too cold and windy for me outside. In weather like this, I prefer to be inside, sleeping in my comfy basket. But they make me go outside for some fresh air anyway, so I stand in the sun to stay warm.
 
 

March: Dogs gotta pee

Here I am doing my rounds in the first week of March. They had to shovel paths in the snow for me all winter long because it was over my head ... too deep for me to plow through. It froze over during the ice storm in April, so then I could walk on the surface of the snow.