My Day at the Specialty

Dear friends,

Today I took a long ride with my mama and my human sister to a place where lots and lots of Bernese Mountain Dogs have gathered together.

Some were doing Agility, going up and down ramps and jumping through hoops.

Some were pulling carts, which I hear is what we did in the Olde Country.

Some were showing how obedient they are.

Some got to go around in a ring just for being more than seven years old!! And some got admired just for being puppies.

Some are competing in Con-for-ma-tion, to see which dogs look and move the most like our breed is supposed to, or so I'm told. I saw some of those dogs. Their people got more dressed up than the rest, and those dogs looked extremely clean and tidy.

So did I!! My mama took me on this long car trip to meet a lady named Pat, who takes pictures of dogs like me, with her friend, Joye. They go to big gatherings and take lots of pictures, but they don't do it as a job. They do it as a gift. My mama wrote down a name on a piece of paper along with numbers, and that was a donation to the people who rescue Bernese Mountain Dogs from auctions.

I asked my mama what an auction is and she said to tell you it's a place that's okay for lamps and sofas and silver candlesticks, but not for animals. Our friend, Toby, who lives with Revsweet, got rescued by those nice people and so we gave our money to that group, BARC. (Get it?)

After all my pretty pictures were taken, Pat and Joye wanted to eat their lunches. We were still waiting for a round silver thing from the computer that had my pictures, so my mom stayed and talked with them. When I saw them eating delicious sandwiches, I realized they had forgotten ALL about my long ride in the car and how hungry I must be, so I told them.

"Wroo wroo!" I said, and I raised up and told them.

Pat said she wanted a picture of that, too, so I had to pose some more.

I hope you enjoy my pictures. My mama says there are more over at her Flickr page.

Also, my Papa Bear showed up and petted me for a while, but he had to go back to work. He said he'll be home soon. (Don't tell Sam I saw him, okay? He stayed home and spent the day with Louise, who takes us for walks. He had a good day, too, and our mama brought him turkey hearts that were dried up into treats. Yum!)

Let me know if you like my pictures,

Love,
Your friend,
Molly

P.S. Here's how I look at my mama.

A Few Thoughts From the Sofa

Dear friends,

Tonight I am on the sofa thinking about some things and want to tell you about them.

First, I want to tell you a very sad thing. My friend, Cub Poppy, could not get well in her body, and she died. My mama gets tears in her eyes when she talks about it. I know Cub's family misses her very much, because they had a lot of love together, all of them, and they still do.

One of my mama's friends says, "If dogs don't go to heaven, I want to go where they go when I die." I think it's a silly thing to worry about. Where else would dogs go? My mama always says the way to salvation is to become exactly the person God made you to be, and since dogs have a lot less trouble doing that than people do, we must be going to heaven. We don't know how to pretend the way you do, and we don't want to, anyway. We just love and get hungry and have a drink of water and tell you when it's time for a cookie; we keep it simple. We run when we see the ducks in the park, just to tell them how pretty they are. We roll in piles of dry moss that the neighbors raked, and then we shake the moss out of our coats. We enjoy ourselves. We enjoy the world. That's being real.

I've been going to see a nice vet named Dr. Karen. I've known her since I was a baby puppy. She taught my mama and my Papa Bear how to take care of a puppy. I trust Dr. Karen, so even though she is sticking little poking things into me, I stand still, mostly, and I lie down until it's time to have the little poking things come out again. Dr. Karen pats me over and over again to be sure there are none left behind, but maybe she pets me a little extra because I am so soft. Petting a soft dog makes a person feel better. I hope Cub's people are petting The Boy dog at their house, and I hope they all make each other feel as better as they can feel while they are getting used to Cub being gone.

Here is my dream for Cub: Cub feels as light as a puppy but as wise as she was on earth, and she is meeting other dogs waiting for their humans to come some day, and she is not lonely, and she is wearing a sky-blue bandanna with fluffy clouds printed on it, because she is an angel dog now.

We will all miss her, until the day we meet again.

Love,
Your friend,
Molly