That is, I was in the “people house”

It happened a while back and I meant to tell you about it then, but stuff happened. For one thing, we had a visitor with us and that took my mind off of things. My mommy’s friend from Boston was here. They used to teach in the same school and carpooled from the suburbs into Boston. She is a nice lady, she walked me in the mornings because my mommy has been limping lately. Since she’s gone now, my mommy rides the golf cart and I walk in front of it. It looks like I’m pulling the golf cart along.

But yesterday my mommy came home and told me about a puppy she tried to rescue and couldn’t. She was pretty upset about it. Mommy and Jean were driving on Thacker Avenue coming back from the acupuncturist, and there was this little puppy right out there ready to dart into traffic. Jean stopped the car and held up all kinds of traffic behind her while my mommy tried to get the puppy. Every time she got close the puppy ran back off the street, but then when she headed to the car, the puppy came back out ready to run into traffic. She finally gave up and now she can’t stop thinking about that poor little doggie.

She said “see, that could have been you”. I knew right away what she was talking about. I got in BIG trouble a few weeks ago. Boy, was she mad.

Here’s what happened. One day back in January, when we went for our usual morning walk it was time to turn around and head back home, I didn’t want to. I stopped and wouldn’t move, she had to pull and pull and finally get me up off the ground. I couldn’t go back home then, I just couldn’t! You know I am a canine expert on mysterious things going on in Solivita and this was something that needed investigating. There was an odor I will never forget and I needed to get to the bottom of things. Of course she won the tug of war, but she had to practically drag me all the way home.

Well I like to sit out in the courtyard when we get back and watch people going by and bark at the dogs that walk past. But that day, my mommy didn’t get the gate latch quite closed. I was able to push my nose into the gate and open it. I was off and heading toward the mysterious odor when this man and woman in a truck stopped. I am a very friendly dog, so I went over to say hello to them. Then they scooped me right up. Boy was I disgusted. I didn’t even know those people but Peter next door told them where I lived and minutes later there I was back home. When the man rang the doorbell and asked mommy if she was missing a dog, she nearly panicked. She always tells everybody how good I am and that they don’t have to worry when they come in or leave my house because I would never run away. She was surprised, but mainly just mad—at me. I wasn’t allowed to stay in the courtyard for a long time after that and now she makes sure she has that latch securely in place.

She was mad, but I was offended. I know my way around my neighborhood and I know my neighbors, they are all friends of mine. I don’t need any stranger taking me back home like I’m a two-year old.

Worst of all, there is that mystery in Solivita that will never be solved.

Get your hankies ready.

Well not my very best friend; that, after all would be my mom. I have to say that because she feeds me, picks up after me, and lets me walk her. She would be upset if I didn’t consider her my bestie.

However, my best canine friend was Ollie. Ollie and I spent many happy hours playing together while we were growing up. Our mommies would get together for coffee or dinner (with lots of wine) and we would be able to run together, jump on each other, and share our toys. Oh, we had such a lot of fun!

Ollie and his mommy lived on Vista which is only a short way from where we live on Barcelona. I know my way there on my own. I just have to go right out of my driveway and when I get to Vista, which is only 4 houses away, go right there and stay on Vista till almost the end.

(This is Ollie, Emma, and me on walking with my human brother, Eric. Ollie is the other Shih Tzu.)

Ollie’s mommy took him to New York for a few months every now and then. Ollie has a human brother there. So when I hadn’t seen Ollie for a while, while we were out walking, I led my mommy right to their house and up their driveway and sat there by their front door. Actually I was sad and crying, as only I can do, because Ollie wasn’t racing to the door to greet me. I was sad. My mommy kept saying “Brady, Ollie is in New York”.  So….. …I didn’t know where New York was. I thought it might be like St. Cloud or Winter Haven, only a few miles away. So I kept taking my mommy there when we walked, but Ollie was never there. “He’s still in New York” she’d say.

Pretty soon, my mom insisted we go left out of our driveway on our walks, she didn’t say why, but I can guess. She didn’t like distressing me because I couldn’t find Ollie.

Then on our trip up to New England we stopped by New York, and there he was, waiting for me in the doorway wagging his tail. We were so happy to be reunited. We ran and played and Ollie showed me his big back yard which is all fenced in. We ran there and played with his canine sister Emma and just had a fabulous time. I sure wish I could do THAT again;

But now I know that will never happen again. My friend Ollie has crossed that Rainbow Bridge; he’ll never again be running to the door to greet me with his tail wagging. I won’t see him for a long while, not till I cross that Rainbow Bridge myself, and my mommy says she hopes that won’t happen for a very long while.

So this is what I think, when I think of Ollie, who will ALWAYS be my best canine friend.

Yep, that’s correct, I’m an uncle. Uncle Brady, that’s me.

My niece is a young pup who belongs to my human brother, Eric. Eric named her Weetamoe. That seemed like a strange name to me, especially for a girl. Who names a girl Weetamoe?  My brother, that’s who.

Well, it turns out that Weetamoe is Algonquin for ‘sweetheart’. Eric is a student of the Algonquin Indians and King Philip and all of that era. You know, don’t you, that King Philip was the  Pokunoket chief called ‘King Philip’ by the English, the bands known today as Wampanoag.

We wonder if maybe Eric is part Algonquin Indian himself, their spirit certainly lives within him. He is happiest when he is outside either canoeing or building fires in his fire pit, or of course walking Weetamoe over at the agricultural high school. We won’t know for sure about Eric’s heritage until we receive his DNA results.

It was a little over a year ago when my mommy changed my name to ‘sweetheart’. She did that when she found out that Tom Brady was voting for Trump. But she forgets it 90% of the time, I guess she’s just too old to remember stuff all the time.

I’ve never met my niece, but I hope to next summer when we go to Massachusetts. I hope she will like me, but she has to understand that I’m not a pup, I’m an old guy, just like my mommy is old. I won’t be able to play as much as she likes to play.

This is Weetamoe: isn’t she beautiful!

Very mysterious things have been going on in Solivita. One of the biggest is about our Turkey Population.

We did have a large turkey population here. For years when I walked my mom in the early mornings, we would see the turkeys getting down, sometimes we would see about 20 turkeys. Turkeys don’t get up in the morning, they get down because they sleep in the trees.

They have a ritual in the morning. Once the leader flies down the rest of the rafter flies down. Then they have a little opening ceremony or a dance, after that the lookout takes off and the rest of the turkeys gradually follow, all while the lookout keeps her distance.

I don’t mind the turkeys at all, they are beautiful and they mind their own business, they don’t interfere with me at all. They are much better than those awful sand cranes that march in wherever they want to and just take over. They are very territorial, they think everywhere is their turf.

I agree with Benjamin Franklin, the turkey should be our national bird. He thought they were a lot better than the Eagle who he said is lazy and not brave because the eagles will wait until other birds catch a fish and then swoop down and take it from them. They also back down when smaller birds challenge them.

I wish we still had all the turkeys but the turkey population almost vanished, for a couple of years, we didn’t see many at all; we don’t know what happened to them. Maybe it is because Maria on the corner that used to feed them got real sick and couldn’t feed them anymore. I’m not sure who their natural predators are, we certainly have enough dangerous critters here including alligators.

It is certainly a mystery but they were gradually coming back, we had several showing up before Thanksgiving, and then—Boom! They were gone again. I have a theory about this, I’ll share it with you, but first, I want to tell you about another mystery.

At our Solivita library we only shelve books that are 10 years old or younger. The ones we don’t shelve are stored upstairs in the administration building. Later they are donated either to the veterans or to the Polk County Corrections Department. A few weeks ago, twenty cartons of these books were stolen after they were placed in a locked room.

How in the heck can 20 cartons of books go missing from an over 55 community. How many of us have the stamina to carry off 2 cartons of books, let alone 20. I have a theory about this too.

You know I did very well when I attended the Canine Comprehensive College when I studied doggie detectiving.

Here’s what I think after diagnosing these two cases. I think the turkeys are smart, they knew that Thanksgiving was coming up, so they went into hiding until that holiday passed. They are reemerging now, so I this this makes my diagnosis very valid.

Further, stolen library books have to be an inside job. I haven’t figured out who carried out this heist, but I’m looking for insiders who seem to be dealing these books on the second-hand market.  When this mystery is resolved, we will all be able to rest easy. We need to get these criminals off of our Solivita streets.

Something strange happened a couple of months ago. We were apparently having some company. Usually when we’re expecting guests, my mommy tries to get all of my toys picked up off the floor. She cleans the kitchen and tries to get everything put away off of the kitchen counter and sometimes she even cleans the floors.

Not this time. Boy I couldn’t figure out who this company was, but instead of cleaning, she kept dragging stuff in from the lanai. I sure couldn’t figure that out. We had Don come over and help us get the big plants out of the courtyard and even moved our huge cement mushroom into the casita.

This guest came in the middle of the night. I didn’t even see her or hear her. One of my main responsibilities is to alert my mom when we have visitors. Oh, I should mention that once we had another uninvited guest.

That happened just before Christmas a couple of years ago. I was sleeping with my human brother Eric. I knew there was an uninvited guest, so I started barking and barking. My mom came into our bedroom where I was snuggled in with Eric and Eric told her that there was someone in our casita. Can you imagine that?? What nerve they had trying to act as our casita was an open motel for just anybody to use.

Well, mom went out there at midnight in her bare feet to confront the intruders. Was that real smart? There they were bringing in pillows, suit cases, and other belongings. They seemed to be happily settling in.

She went out and said, “May I help you.”  They said “Do you know such and such a person?” She didn’t. “Well he told us to come here tonight”.  She let them know they couldn’t stay here, that she didn’t know their friend, and they needed to figure out where they were to go. The man was most apologetic and said how nice it was that she didn’t get afraid. Huh?

He checked his phone and it turned out he was supposed to be at 621 Villa Park and not 621 Barcelona Drive. Uninvited guests left, we never heard a word from them after that night. Maybe a little note would have been nice.

That was a long digression, sorry…. But now we are back in September 2017.   Actually it was September 7. At least our nighttime visitor wasn’t trying to sleep in our casita.

This time when I woke “her” up; it was the regular wake up time early in the morning and not when our visitor arrived. We got up and went out to the front of our house,.Right away we knew we didn’t want to do our regular walk. It was quite windy and a little rainy. I saw a big tree down across our driveway. What to do now? At least our power was still working so that’s when mommy called her our friend Irma.

I found a spot that was doggie heaven.

Surprise, we didn’t go to New England this year. We went to Ohio instead. I’m a real good boy while we’re in the car. Sometimes I sit in the front seat and just look adoringly at my mom while she drives. Other times, I get myself into the back seat where my bed is and just sleep. I enjoy our long drives.

When we get somewhere, boy o boy–that is when the trouble begins. I mean T.R.O.U.B.L.E. — I’ve been a good boy all day and I want to play, go outside, get something to eat, play some more, go outside again and do other annoying stuff to try to make my mommy try to figure out what I want. I get some dirty looks. ‘She’ says she wants to put her feet up and have a glass of wine. I can’t figure out what is so important about that. Can you?

I mean after all, once we get where we are going, I help her bring in her suitcase, her cpap machine, her computer, my bed, my bag of stuff, a cooler, and a few other things. She says she is tired, but I don’t know why because I’m not tired at all.

This year we went Akron, Ohio where my mommy says she grew up. We saw my human cousin, Kim, who then left us and went down to Myrtle Beach. So what we did is spend a lot of time with Kim’s mom, Bobbie. She’s a real nice lady. I met some new people there who were also nice. I didn’t especially like our morning walks because there were a couple of big unfriendly dogs who got off their leashes and came running up to us. They scared the stuffing right out of me.

My favorite day was when Shirley and Barbara came. We got in their car and drove to Warren, Ohio, that’s where mommy’s husband grew up. I never knew him.

I’ve known Shirley for a long time, she has visited us in Florida a couple of times. The last time we were together was in the Poconos; that is when mommy and I almost ran into a bear when we were out walking in the morning.

Yikes!

When we saw the bear, first, we just started backing up and then turned around and headed back to the timeshare as fast as we could.  I am faster than she is. That was a close call; the bear came down to empty the trash containers looking for food. I just didn’t want to be there in case they didn’t find what they were looking for in the trash bin.

This day got more bizzare by the minute. We went to a shopping center and there must have been 100 police cars there all over the parking lot. We didn’t have a clue as to what had happened. They wouldn’t let us go left, right, or straight. We were in a fix.

Then that night we learned that there was a mad man loose in the Poconos who had murdered a police man.  We were told to shelter in place and not go near any windows.

That was a couple of years ago, but now Shirley drove us to Marilyn and Dick’s house. This was heaven for me because I am sure they have the best back yard in the whole world. I was able to wander in the back yard and sniff to my heart’s content. I didn’t have to have a leash and I wasn’t constantly being told “hurry up Brady”.  The back yard was so pretty with a white picket fence and lots of flowers. This was my favorite spot of all time. I could be out there on my own without worrying about alligators or even snakes. I was having the best time, then I started digging under the fence, that’s when I got in a little bit of trouble. But I wish I could have just stayed there and enjoyed that peaceful back yard. I liked Kim’s back yard too but there I didn’t have a fence to dig under. Marilyn and Dick were very nice too. They already had a dog dish for my water. I hope I get to go back there sometime soon.

Pretty soon, though, the week was over and we had to head for home. But… not before getting lots of fresh Ohio corn and tomatoes to take back to Solivita for some of our friends.

One of my mom’s favorite parts of the trip was when we went to buy the corn and tomatoes. It was very near where my mom used to spend a lot of time in the summers working on her Dad’s farm. When she mentioned that her Dad had a farm near there, they all remembered him. He hasn’t even been alive for fifty years, yet these people knew of him. It was special. He was a special person.

On our way home we met up with my human brother Greg and his wife Marilyn. Outside our room was a dumpster. We thought there was a cat in there and started try to get it but it was no cat, it was a raccoon. Yikes!

A Nighttime Event….

I really don’t like it when my mamma goes out at night. When I see her getting ready to go out, I give her a certain look. When I do that she says “I know you’re my mom reincarnated, stop giving me that guilty look.” She should feel guilty when she goes out and leaves me all alone at night. I don’t like it and I will keep on giving her that look.

The other night, well actually it has been almost a month already. It was just before the super moon way back in the middle of November. Remember that?

She was getting ready to go out and Jean came over. They were talking about stuff and loading up my mom’s golf cart with stuff. I was hanging around looking like it was the end of the world.

All of the sudden my mom said she was going to take me over just to deliver the stuff and then bring me back. Jean said, “Oh no, we can just keep him there”. My heart jumped with joy. I don’t get to attend very many social functions that aren’t right here in my own home, especially at night. But now I WAS GOING!

I was so excited. Of course my mom gave me that “You Better Be a Good Boy” lecture. And I was! I was a good boy and had the time of my life.

We had a bon fire over at Glenda and Don’s house. Lots of people were there, and I fit right in. I walked around and talked to all of the folks there. Some of my favorite people were there, of course like Don and Glenda. But also my longtime favorites Peggy and Carl were there. I spent some quality time with Peggy while she walked me and held my leash while my mom seemed to have other things to do.

I made some new friends too. I actually knew Sharon because she comes to my house to play mahjongg, but her husband, Larry, made me a hot dog and he was especially concerned about the way I liked it. Sharon and Larry are from New Hampshire so they like the Patriots, and of course I have a certain connection too.

I hope I was a good enough boy to be able to go to the next bon fire.

It was eleven years ago today that I first entered this world.

I was born in Orlando, way out past the airport, I lived there with my brothers and sisters for almost two months and then “she” bought me. I will tell you I thought I was one dead dog on the way home. She brought a crate to put me in. Can you even imagine that—ME in a crate? Please, I don’t even want to think about that any more.

Then after putting me in the crate, she put the crate in the back seat while she drove us back to this place that would become my home. I have to tell you I never thought I would make it. The crate fell over and I landed on my head, she didn’t stop, maybe she couldn’t, I don’t know. When she finally did stop all she did was set the crate back up, she didn’t even think about the indignity she was putting me through.

When we finally got here, I hid behind the piano whenever I could, I just didn’t trust this woman. How could I? I was sure she kidnapped and was trying to kill me. I wouldn’t even eat at first, I thought she would poison me.

Lots of her friends came over and brought me presents. My mom told them I wouldn’t eat so one of them gave me food, I trusted that person so finally I could end my starvation campaign. Everybody loved me and said I was sooo cute; I was beginning to like them. But I still wondered about “her”. At night she put that crate on a table next to her bed, and ME back in it.

Once I got that crate opened, I joined her in her bed, well that didn’t last, she put me right back in that crate. I didn’t think this was going to work at all. I was trying to figure out how to escape. I thought maybe when she took me out to the back yard I could just wander off and she wouldn’t know it. That didn’t work; alas, I was stuck.

Somehow we learned to coexist. She learned pretty fast that I would do the crate on my terms, not hers. Other things changed too, she was slow in learning some stuff, but I got her trained over time.

Now we do things my way, as it should be. I sleep on her bed, I eat only human food and she does things around my schedule. Just ask any of her friends about that.

You’re right, I’ve been lazy. I mean, it has taken me over two years to get around to posting anything. That’s definitely not what I am proud of.

I’ve got lots to you bring you up to date on, but first I want to tell you about something that happened about two years ago.

Mom had been taking me with her to visit her friend Millie who lived at Good Samaritan Nursing Home. Millie liked to have me come and visit and when I went we also met other people there who would smile at and talk to me. They seemed very happy to see me. We would visit in Millie’s room and also go out to the butterfly garden to sit outside. Mostly we saw birds there and not too many butterflies. It made Millie happy though to go out and show me off to her friends.

Millie was ninety-five years old when we started visiting her there, we kept going for another four years. If Mom ever went without me, Millie would be disappointed.

Suddenly, Mom got the idea that I could become a Therapy Dog, and don’t you know, that is what I became. I wear that badge on my collar with pride. I even have a certificate, sort of like my diploma from the Canine Comprehensive College. I should have it framed, so I can look at it every day. Not every dog can be a Therapy Dog, but I am.

Now Mom says that in reality, I’m her therapy, even though she used Millie as the excuse for my becoming certified. My certification came with many benefits. I can walk into the lobby of a big hotel and they welcome me, even timeshares allow me to come. Well, most of them do, but that is a story for another day.

I guess this elevated status went to my head. I got so interested in other things that I ignored my responsibility to keep my adoring public advised of the important events in my life. But now you know, so the next time you see me walking down Barcelona, make sure that you show the proper respect.

And Santa Claus comes tonight……

I’m so excited, I wonder what Santa will put into my stocking. My mommy says I’ve been a mostly good boy.

I love Christmas too, because I get to see my human brothers. Eric is already here and Greg will be here too. We always have a good time when they are here.

I wish I could see them more often but usually when my mommy goes to see them she goes on an airplane. She can’t take me on the airplane because I don’t fit under the seat in front and I can’t go with the cargo. I would get too afraid, I don’t like loud noises.

So Christmas is a very special time of the year for me with all of my family here and having good food too.

I bet we’ll have rib roast tomorrow; that is my favorite.

I hope all of my friends will have a special time this year too. And I hope to see you all well and happy in 2014.