Happy Halloween

October 31, 2007. Well, a big Happy Halloween to all you ghosts, ghouls, goblins etc. out there. I haven’t written for a long time, mainly because there has not been too much to say. We have settled into our routine of going to the park in the morning where I get a run of between 40 and 60 minutes every day. Later in the day, I sometimes get another run in the park or an evening walk.

I have been doing very well on my commands, although I do like to tease Tom. I go and get the ball and bring it back to him, but, just before I get there I veer away and keep going, so that he has to follow me. I never go too far out of his reach though. Another tease I like to do is to go up to Tom and drop the ball. As soon as he bends down to pick it up, I snatch it away from him and then move farther away.

Lately though, I have taken pity on him and have started to go right to him and sit down on his feet for a good rub and lots of praise. Then I drop the ball and let him get it. I’m sure he appreciates my effort in this respect. It’s to my benefit too, because once he gets the ball back, I get to chase it again and I do so love to run.

There are some things of note that have seemed to occur in the last little while. It is no longer, Helicopter Man and The Chicken Wing Dancers. They seem to have had a falling out. The dancers arrive early in the morning and when Helicopter Man arrives, the dancers leave. I don’t know what happened, but I’m guessing they got tired of being yelled at.

I have met several new friends in the last little while and have had an opportunity to run with Jet, Cedar, Cody, Max, and Oscar. We have had a great deal of fun running around the park.

We continue to walk over and visit Renee for lunch. I really enjoy the extra walk during the day and getting to see her. I’m always so excited when we arrive and wait patiently for her to arrive. My bum almost falls off it wiggles so much when she comes out.

Something else we did one day is that we drove over to the neighbourhood where Renee grew up. We got to visit her old house and school and walk around her old “stompin grounds”. It was a lot of fun and it brought back a lot of childhood memories for Renee. She wanted to share those with me and Tom and I really enjoyed the walk around. Tom doesn’t have to go back to his old neighbourhood because we still live in it.

Another new thing is that Grand Pappy Frank has been allowing his cat, “Mystery” and me to meet more and more often. We have actually touched noses a couple of times in the last few days. I lie down in front of her so that I don’t intimidate her with my size and she responds by slowly moving forward. She’s not afraid of me at all. She always sits in the back window and watches me play in the yard and when we are at the park, Mystery moves to the front window and watches me there. I bet she wishes she could come and play.

Tom now takes guitar lessons twice a week. On Mondays, he and Renee go together and learn on their acoustic guitars and on Wednesdays Tom goes alone and learns how to play his electric guitar better. They are getting much better in their playing and have learned lots of songs.

Tom is also back at hockey and having fun. When he and I go on Thursdays I get a big walk around the outside of the building before he goes in. Then I guard the truck and when he comes back I get another big long walk. I get to meet some of his team-mates on the way out as well.

Karl joined Tom one night and got to play with the team. Tom thought it was really cool to have his son playing on his line. Now he knows how Gordie Howe felt when he got to play with his sons. Karl has since joined his high school team, “The Hornets” and they played their first game last week, before they had their first practice. Unfortunately they lost 4-2. Next week Tom will get to go and see Karl play.

The other day we met up with the old fellow and his little dog that I protected. He doesn’t speak English too well, but he expressed his heartfelt thanks to Tom for my saving his little dog. He kept pointing at me and saying “very good dog”. It turned out that the “Chow” dog that attacked his dog ripped the chest of the little guy open. It took 23 stitches and several trips to the vet and over $500 to repair the damage. If I had not raced across the park to get between them, the little dog would have been killed. He was very grateful for my actions and I am very proud of myself.

It hasn’t all been good lately though. I have had a couple of meltdowns recently where I just refuse to listen to Tom and have charged off across the park. One morning I was misbehaving so much, Tom cut my run short to twenty minutes. We did go out again in the afternoon, so I did get my exercise in.

We haven’t been back to Burnaby Lake since our cougar sighting, but we have done a couple of walks around Deer Lake. People at Deer Lake seem to be friendlier than at Burnaby Lake and they are only a couple of kilometers apart. I guess because there are less joggers at Deer Lake. Lots of people smile at me there and want to pet me. I sure do love that part.

Another thing I really don’t like is the fireworks and firecrackers that have been booming out in the last week or so. They really scare me, but thankfully I am inside and I stay very close to Tom and/or Renee. They’ll protect me.

This morning, Tom and I jumped into the truck and he hooked up the boat. I thought maybe we were heading for the lake, but it turned out he was just taking the boat in for servicing and winterizing. That’s it for boat rides until next summer. The yard looks empty without the boat there though. It works out good though because the boat is gone for Halloween and eliminates the chance of someone throwing a firecracker onto it.

Our best wishes and thoughts go out to Ron and Glenda from the lake. I won’t go into detail here, but they are going through a potentially dangerous procedure and we wish them all of the best. We’re confident all will go well. See you at the lake next summer!