Sea Dog Tails

Hello sailors! Marlon here with a little update from Aleta. It’s been all of eight weeks now and I have to say this sailing life really has its ups and downs. There’s a saying Coco told me. Coco was one of the bitches at the shelter. She said, in life there are dogs born to adventure, dogs that aspire to adventure, and dogs that have adventure thrust on them. And she knew what she was talking about, she’d been around the dog park a few times.

We loved hearing her stories late at night, when the peoples had gone, and the lights were out in the kennels. She told one story, I’ll never forget it, about when she bit a dog catcher on the ass and got away by hiding under a dumpster, only to get in a fight with a street cat named Hugo who was hiding there, too. She said she was sore for days. The way she told it was so funny she had us rolling around howling and peeing on the floor. I don’t know what happened to Coco. I got adopted before she did and I never saw her again.

If you don’t know, that’s what a dog’s life is like. Other dogs come and go. Peoples come and go, too. Sometimes you get lucky and you can make a pack. A pack of dogs is great, but a pack of peoples works pretty good, too. Takes a bit of time to build a pack, mind you. I know when I got adopted by my current peoples it took me ages to get them trained.

Luckily, I had some help with a couple of older dogs that lived with them already, Annie and Banjo. Those two knew how to work their peoples so they’d get treats and massages and cuddles all the time. What I showed them was how they could get up on the sofa without getting kicked off. They thought that was so cool! It’s pretty easy, especially when it’s cold. You just have to look cute, smile, shiver a bit, and then jump up and snuggle down. Peoples fall for it every time.

One of the things that I’ve always found important in life is to snuggle with your pack mates. It’s easy if you’re all hanging together like Annie and Banjo and I did. With peoples it’s a little harder to round them up, so I go to them instead. That way they can all practice their snuggling with me and I build redundancy into the system. I may be cute, but I’m not dumb.

Annie and Banjo aren’t around anymore. I kind of miss them. But it means my peoples are spending all their time with me, which is pretty good. When we’re on Aleta they’re all close together, so at least I don’t have to go far to find  h. On the flipside, the boat has been pretty challenging, too. I’m used to marking my territory when we go for walks, but there’s not a whole lot of walking on the boat, except around the outside and that’s not far enough to inspire me to do much of anything marking-wise.

A few years ago I got a pretty clear message about not going in the house. My peoples made a lot of noise when I did, and Banjo let me know that it wasn’t okay, that I should hold it. Annie really knew how to hold it and taught me all the tricks of not drinking or eating if our peoples didn’t get home by feeding time.

So here I am on the boat and I’m not really sure what’s changed. I do know that I’ve had to hold it for a couple of days at a time and that gets old real fast. There was something about this green bit of plastic grass that the big guy peed on a couple of times. It was pretty funny watching him do that, but I made it clear that I wasn’t about to fall into that trap. A couple of times that my peoples were supposed to take me off for a walk and didn’t. I had to pee so bad my canines were swimming! So, yeah, I’ve done it on deck, but I’m not that comfortable with it. I’d rather hold it if I can. Sorry, all this is really way too much sharing. Can I have a treat now?

I had an adventure the other day. I like Aleta a lot. Being big and red, she’s easy to find on the dock. But I also like to visit other boats when I can get off the leash long enough. The other day all the peoples were down inside Aleta making a lot of noises. I got bored, so I went for a look-see at some of the other boats nearby. There was a really pretty white one just down the dock and I went to check it out. The only problem was when I jumped up on her deck it was slippery, and I mean real slippery! Woof it! I fell off into the water.

Now, I’m not big on the water, not like Annie was. She loved it. And dog was it cold! But Annie had told me how to swim and pretty soon I was just doing it – swimming I mean. After a while I was getting a little tired and a peoples I hadn’t seen before picked me up out of the water by my neck, just like my mom used to. He was really nice and put me in his truck so I could get warm. Just then my peoples turned up and they were really excited to see me, and they took me back to Aleta for snuggles and massages. So, it was a pretty good adventure after all.

My pack is doing pretty well. I really like it when we’re all together and I can lie in my bed and just be near my peoples. I also really like it when it’s time to get off the boat and go for a walk. It’s such a relief when the smaller boat comes alongside. I know there’s a walk or a run coming. And doggone it I miss my runs! The littlest peoples used to run me. We used to play fetch. I trained her to throw the ball for me every time I took it to her. I miss that. But when we walk, we go for long ones. That’s good. Well, gotta run. I’m scheduling a massage for ten minutes. Cue cute smile. Chow!

 

 

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