I'm a very curious little dog, and I have several interests here in life, and I thought I'd tell you a little about it here.

Sticks and other things you can find on walks

When mum and I go for walks I very often find things I like to carry around for a while. Sticks are very fun, and there are several different kinds of sticks. Some are really small and thin, and break as soon as you bite on them just a little. Other sticks are more proper, and those ones can be carried around for quite long, unless they are stuck on some huge branch that has fallen down from a tree. If that's the case they are usually too heavy for me to carry, and then I try to lie down and chew on them for a while. But, unfortunately mum can be quite boring, so she usually tells me that she has no intention standing around just watching me chew on a stick, so I better get going. The best is really when I find a stick of a good size that I can carry for part of the walk.

Sometimes on walks I find other interesting things to carry around. There was a time I was mad about empty cans! My favourite cans were Fanta! If there were one Coca-Cola can and one Fanta can be lying beside each other, I always picked the Fanta can! The thing was that mum didn't really approve of me carrying cans, since she said I could hurt myself in case I'd bite through the metal. Sometimes I listen to my mum, and since I didn't want to get hurt, I stopped carrying cans around. Now I just sniff them a bit. Instead I started to look for little paper cups with a straw in them, and they are quite fun too. You can throw them around up in the air and really have a good time with them!

Sometimes I find those paper cups from fast food places! I really enjoy them, but once I found one that I started carrying around it turned out it was half full of milkshake. When I carried it, the milkshake started to drip out of the cup, and I got it all over my front legs and got all sticky and mucky. It was a nice taste licking it away, but of course I ended up having a bath when we got back from that walk.

Yoghurt cups are also fun to carry. Sometimes I find that too on walks, but I don't recommend sticking your nose into them. I've tried it because I smelled something nice inside the cup and wanted a taste of it, and guess what?! My nose got stuck in the cup and I got all messy again.

I think glass bottles could be fun, but mum wont let me try to carry them, and sometimes we see dead birds on our walks, but mum wont even let me go near them. Very often I find clothes, mostly it's gloves, mittens, hats, baseball caps and scarves. I've also been seen carrying a pair of underpants, who knows how they ended up in the street!! All mum said was that she hoped they were clean.

The fun part about finding different clothes is to lift them up and shake them! Give the clothes a good shake so your ears flutter, and then run and jump with the piece of clothing in your mouth and shake it again. It's so much fun, but sometimes it can get you into trouble, like if it's a long scarf, and you step on it by mistake. When that happens, you stumble and fall. When it comes to gloves and caps and scarves, mum usually tries to take it away from me. At least if it looks as if someone just dropped it. Then she takes it from me and puts it up somewhere high so I can't reach it. She says it's because if someone comes back to look for it most people don't want to find their clothes covered with dog slime on it...

About other things to carry around, well, I think most stuff is worth a try. Although sometimes you find that whatever you found is either not funny at all to carry around, or it's very hard to carry around. Ice for instance is very hard to carry! I don't know what it is, but it sort of disappears! Very strange!

Snow

Snow is so much fun!! I just love snow, specially that soft and fluffy snow you can dig passages in! Sometimes during the winter mum wonders if it's a dog she got, or a mole, since I just have to dig my way through all snowdrifts I can see. It's also very amusing to jump in snow! All you have to do is to find a place where there is plenty of snow, and then you just jump around there like a kangaroo! In between jumping around, you have to stop and give your mum happy looks with glittering eyes, telling her how much fun you are having.

Sometimes there can be accidents in the snow. This is what happened mum and me on a walk: We were going through a park, and since mum knows how much fun I have in the snow, she decided to leave the footpath, and cross over a lawn to let me run my nose through the snow. What we didn't know was that under the snow that had just fallen, it was ice. I'm sure you can guess what happened! After a Fred Astaire dance number to try and keep on her feet, mum fell flat on her back! Suddenly she was just there on the ground, and I got really worried about her and walked up to her and put my cold, wet nose in her face. She did move, and eventually she got up mumbling something about "next time she decided to let me play in the snow, she'd make sure there were no people around". She wasn't very impressed over the audience she'd had during her little dance number you see. After that fall, she had a few bruises and her back was hurting, but at least she could move. It has happened a few more times that mum has done the same little dance, and had a fall, but at least those times it was only me there to see it.

I have to admit, that it's not always snow is fun. For example, it's no fun at all if the snow has frozen and is hard, because you can't jump in it or dig in it. Also, when it's wet snow, it tangles up in your coat and you get snowballs of different size hanging all over, and sometimes they get so big you can't walk! And when you get in after a walk like that, it takes ages to get all the snow out, and you get all wet, which is something I really hate. It's also a pity the snow isn't around all year, because that would be so fun. At least I think so.

People

Mum says that I sound like a bad copy of a beauty queen when I say I'm interested in people, but I really do find people interesting. Sometimes they do really fun and strange things! Some people are more interesting than others, specially the ones that gives me treats or plays with me. Mum has a few colleagues at work that I really like. They come in to say hello to me, they pet me and one of them has even bought doggy treats especially for me that she keeps in her locker. Other people that I really like are mums' sister, her parents and some friends. When there is a person I really like I show it by getting really happy, you know that happy only a cocker can get, and I run around, wiggling my tail so much mum thinks I'll take off like an aeroplane. If possible, I nearly kill them with sloppy cocker kisses on the ears!

Human things

Usually people have very interesting things that have to be investigated. I'm an expert on investigating things belonging to different people. If I find something really interesting, I sometimes discreetly pick the item up and try to sneak off with it. For example I've "borrowed" screwdrivers, hairbrushes, rolls of tape and once I tried to walk away with a ball of yarn. That didn't work very well since the person I was borrowing it from were knitting at the time...

Another of my big interests is gloves! I love to take peoples gloves and run away to play with them, but usually I'm not allowed to. I did get an old pair of gloves from mums' parents that I keep in their house. It's so much fun running around on the lawn with a glove in my mouth barking and trying to get the humans to take the glove from me. Once when we went to visit mums parents her dad was doing some work outside and he was wearing gloves. The minute he put them down beside him, I was there like a shot taking one of them. Mum told me to give it back, and took out one of my gloves so I could play with that one. But I really wanted her dads' glove, so I took my glove, walked over to her dad and put my glove down beside him, hoping he would make a trade. I sat there, one paw up in the air, looking really cute, hoping he would fall for that, but I'm afraid it didn't work.

Mum has also given me a pair of her old gloves, and it's so much fun running around in the apartment throwing around an old glove. It can keep me going for hours!!

My toys

Mum has given me plenty of toys, although some of them broke, so I don't have them anymore. Mum says I broke them, but why would I do a thing like that? It might have happened that one or two of the little soft balls I have had sort of broke a little, and I got curious about what was inside. I really wanted to find out what that squeaky sound looked like!! All I know is that balls like that are filled with some sort of white fluff, and there is plenty of that white fluff in a small ball! It's really fun getting it out and spread it all around the apartment!

I also have a few big balls, also soft and with many colours, and a squeaky sound in them. In one of them the squeak is gone, so there is no point trying to find out what the squeak looks like. I'm sure those balls have loads of white fluff inside them, but I haven't dared to find out exactly how much, since when I did that to the smaller balls, they disappeared without a trace. I have absolutely no idea where they went! And there is my elephant with a squeaky noise, and it's so much fun! I'm always hoping mum will get me more squeaky toys because I love them so much, but she says she doesn't want me to get too spoiled, but now and again she surprises me with something new.

I also have a big tennis ball, although now it looks more like a rubber ball since I tore off all the little hairy things from it. I didn't see the point of leaving that on the ball. Unfortunately I haven't been able to look if there is anything secret hidden inside that ball, because this far there are no little holes in it that I can make bigger to have a look inside. I used to have a normal size tennis ball as well, but 20 minutes after I got it, it was just little rubber pieces left of it. Mum said I destroyed it on purpose, but really, it wasn't my fault, it was just bad quality in the ball.

Other things I have are ropes, you know the kind of multicoloured ropes with a knot in each end of it. Ropes like that are really fun since there are so many things you can do with them! They are very good to just carry around, you can ask your mum to hold in one end while you pull the other end, and they are great as dental floss!!

Chewing-bones are also something I like, and I have several of them. Sometimes to get a new one, I hide the bones I have somewhere in the apartment in order to make mum believe I've finished them. Then she gives me a new one, so that's why I always have quite a few bones around, and they are all more or less chewed on.

Everything mum owns and does

I told you about mum in a separate place, but I just thought I'd mention a few more things. To keep an eye on her and what she is doing is really a must. I can hardly bear it if she's not around! Because of that, she can hardly do anything but spend her time with me, and that's exactly the way I like it! Sometimes she goes out and leaves me forever!! According to her, she's only gone for 15 minutes since I get so loud and noisy as soon as she closes the door. You see, I can both howl and bark and a good time to practise is when mum leaves the apartment.

I must say I've done very well with mum, there are no forbidden places or closed doors in the apartment. The only time she closes the door to the bathroom is when we have visitors. Mums' bed is very interesting, it's big and soft and has plenty of room. It's very good to store things in. My toys for instance are very good to keep there, because then I know exactly where they are. Sometimes during the night when mum is sleeping I gather all my toys and hide them in her bed. You can imagine the surprise she gets in the morning when she finds my toys are the reason she didn't sleep very comfortable during the night. But it's really not my fault she gets uncomfortable, if she'd only keep still during the night, the toys I hide under her duvet wouldn't annoy her at all.

When I first moved in here, mum had this idea about me being a dog and sleeping in my own bed, not in hers. She wouldn't let me up no matter how much I begged her. She told me that the little bed on the floor beside her bed was one she had made especially for me, so that was supposed to be my place. I still have that bed, but I'm rarely in it. When mum wouldn't let me up in her bed, I decided I should sleep under her bed, so that's where I still spend most of the night. It can be a bit tricky getting in there since it's only about 15 centimetres between the floor and the bed, but if I get down flat on my stomach with my hind legs straight out behind me, it's just a matter of crawling. Once I'm under, I have quite a lot of space from the floor to the bottom of the bed. Mum says I'm a strange dog, preferring to lie on the hard floor under her bed, when I have my own soft bed, but I just like having it like in a small hut.

About not being in the bed, I've solved that now. I did that as soon as I learned how to jump high enough! In the beginning of my jumping career I wasn't very sophisticated. Once up in the bed, I threw myself straight over mums' face, but that only made her wake up since she couldn't breathe with me covering her nose. So, the minute she noticed I was in the bed, she put me down again in my own bed, and it was very annoying. Then I got this idea that maybe it would be better if I checked first if she were sleeping and where her head was. That is very easy to do, you just put your wet and cold nose where the eye is supposed to be. If the eye is closed, mum is sleeping and you are OK, as long as mum is too tired to move, or you're down on the floor again. Now it seems that mum doesn't really care anymore, so every night when we go to bed, I jump up beside her and make myself comfortable on one of her pillows. Then I lie there, looking around in the dark - unless she's reading one of her stupid books - and then I put my head down and lie there until mum has fallen asleep. Then I get down on the floor and in under her bed. Some time in the early mornings I usually jump up in the bed again, so every morning when the alarm clock goes off, mum has to stretch over me to reach it.

I can tell you that mum really have loads of interesting things, and I've carefully investigated everything I can reach, and, believe it or not, I have never destroyed anything belonging to mum. I just investigate everything very closely by sniffing it, trying to figure out what that specific thing is good for. Like all the books mum has, what are they good for??

Doggy biscuits

When it comes to biscuits, I really should have a whole page about it, because according to mum, it's not an interest, it's more of an obsession, or an urge. Well, I wouldn't go that far, but maybe it could be called a deep passion. If you put it like this, if I didn't have mum and there were no biscuits, I don't think life would be as good as it is.

There are different ways to get biscuits. Mum had read somewhere that it's a good idea to give the puppy - me in this case - one or two biscuits at bedtime, mostly to give the puppy - me again - something to do while waiting for the Sandy Man. Now the thing is that I still refuse to go to bed without getting biscuits! Mum has tried a few times to go to bed without giving me any - and sometimes she has forgotten to bring some with her to the bedroom - and those times I have gone nearly ballistic! But usually she remembers to go and get some from the jar in the kitchen, and when I see that I usually give a performance of the little biscuit-dance I have choreographed all by myself. I dance all the way from the living room, out to the kitchen and then into the bedroom. The biscuit-dance is very special, it's very important that you move around in circles just in front of mum's feet as she is walking, and at the same time yap a little. It's also very important to wag the tail all the time! It has happened that I've been so in to my dance that I've danced into doors and chairs and the bed and hit my head, so mum has suggested that maybe I should wear a safety helmet.

Another way to get biscuits is to start barking and talking when mum is on the phone talking to someone. Sometimes she gets so annoyed that she bribes me with biscuits just to shut me up. I also have a talking technique that I use both at home and in work. If I feel it's a long time since mum gave me any biscuits I sit down and start staring at her. If she doesn't seem to see me, or just simply ignores me, I start talking, and boy am I good at that! First I start in a nearly whispering tone with little yaps, then I mix it with some whining, a little bit like Mariah Carey mum says, and if that doesn't work I give little short barks. I do talk on other occasions as well, like if I'm bored and want to play or if I want to go out for a walk. That talk is kind of built up the same way, but in different tones and intensity. The good thing is that mum can tell the difference between my different talking sessions, and that is great, I mean otherwise she might give me biscuits when what I really wanted was a walk. Not that I wouldn't eat the biscuits she is offering, I might as well eat some before I go for a walk, but you can see my point. I do love all kinds of doggy biscuits, and it's hard to pick a favourite... Well, if I have to, maybe the white ones with brown inside... I think they are called marrowbone biscuits. Yummy!

I have to admit that my great passion for biscuits has driven me to theft. But I don't think I should take the whole blame for that. It's not my fault that they in the doggy-food-store display biscuits in baskets just in my height! It's totally irresistible! I usually try to very discretely sneak up to the baskets and take one or two biscuits, hoping that no one will see me. But most times mum sees what I'm doing and tells me; "No Higgins, you shouldn't steal biscuits! It's not nice stealing stuff!" The good thing is that the people in the store don't seem to mind, sometimes they even give me biscuits!

Mum is also saying that I did steal from her pockets as well. She is referring to some biscuits she had in her jeans pockets, and the jeans were hanging over a chair. Well, I might as well admit to that too, since she caught me in the act. But really, I wasn't going to steal them, I was just checking so they wouldn't lie in the pocket getting mouldy or something! And I did think she was going to wash her jeans, and I know it's very important to empty the pockets before putting the clothes in the washing machine! Guess I better tell you what happened:

It was one of those evenings when mum was sitting watching TV, and usually when she does that I'm rolled up in the corner of the sofa, or flat as a pancake on the floor in front of the bookcase just resting. Sometimes when just lying around relaxing, you do get thirsty, so I walked out in the kitchen to get a drink. It's a pretty normal thing to do so nothing strange about that. Only this particular night on my way back in to the living room, I got this huge crave for some biscuits. I knew mum wouldn't give any to me, 'cause she had told me I wouldn't get any until bedtime, and I suspected that bedtime was a loooong time away. The reason mum wasn't going to give me any biscuits before bedtime is that she is pretty tight with the biscuits. She says that if she were to give me all the biscuits I wanted, I'd end up a fat little cocker, looking like a little barrel with match-stick-legs. I don't know how she can say such a thing, I mean what does she know!? I've often watched her stuffing her face with sweets and cakes and all sorts of things she wont give me even a little tiny bit of! Nobody is telling her she can't have something, she decides herself!! It's not fair!

Well, to get back to the story, I sneaked in to the bedroom because I knew mum's jeans were in there, and I also know that she always has biscuits and other treats in her pockets. She keeps it there so she can award me when I've done something good, which I think is all the time! All I had to do was stand on my hind legs, with my front paws up in the chair and stretch just a little bit to reach the pockets. This time I was very lucky! Normally mum fills her pockets in the morning, but for some reason she had already prepared for the next day, so the pockets were full of nice things!! I realised she must have filled her pockets while I was busy doing something else, because I had no idea the pockets were going to be so full! It was like ending up in paradise! I was chewing and chewing not thinking of anything else but eating biscuits and treats. Bad idea, suddenly mum was in the bedroom and I was caught in the act. Ever heard of getting caught with your hand in the cookie jar? Well, talk about getting caught with the muzzle in the pocket... I felt so embarrassed! I hardly knew where to look or where to go, so I tried looking very ashamed, and gave her a little wiggle with my tail. I figured mum would get really angry, which according to her would have been the right thing since my little wrong doings shouldn't go by unnoticed. But, mum doesn't always react the way I think she will, and this occasion was one of them. She picked me up and was trying to say something, but it sounded really weird and I didn't understand a word! It turned out she was laughing hysterically! Tears were streaming from her eyes, and she was trying to take a breath and finally she said something like "oh you little rascal, the things you do for some treats!" I'm also quite sure I heard her saying something about it was a pity she hadn't walked in to the bedroom with the camera in her hand. I didn't find that a pity at all, I thought it was really good she hadn't come in there with the camera!

As soon as mum let me go, I quickly ran in to her jeans again, I got away with it once, so why not try it again! I might as well really clean out her pockets while I was in luck! Big mistake! Mum came marching in to the bedroom again, and this time she had her camera with her, so there I was again, but this time not only caught in the act, I also got a flash right in my face. It was totally embarrassing, and with my head hanging down I went in to the living room again.

After a while when mum had calmed down from her laughter guess what she did!? She called her parents and told them what I had done! She told them that she had thought I'd gone to the kitchen to have a drink of water, but since it took so long she decided to go and have a look to see where I was. I got a nice feeling inside when I heard she went looking for me and missed me, because that shows she really cares about me. She had looked in the kitchen and in here by the computer where I'm usually rolled up in to a little ball under a cabinet while she's at the computer. When she couldn't find me, she thought that maybe I'd gone to sleep under her bed, and that's when she caught me.

As far as I could hear, her parents were laughing at least as much as mum had done. I really don't think they should all laugh at me, because the reason I did what I did was actually to help mum empty the pockets. I think she was a little bit pleased because she did say something about her pockets never being so clean inside, not the smallest crumb was to be found! So don't you think it sounds that she was happy I helped her? At least a little. But I can tell you who wasn't happy when we were going to bed; Me! I didn't even get the tiniest little treat from mum, and I was very annoyed. I decided not to let mum go to sleep before she gave me a biscuit, so I started to jump in and out of her bed, walking all over her, pulling away her duvet and other little things I knew would irritate mum. She simply pulled the duvet back over her head and said that I had more than enough biscuits for a day, and that I could go to sleep without anything to chew on. But I wasn't having that, so I pulled away the duvet from her head again, and started to pull her hair. I was actually digging in her hair because I wasn't going to let her go to sleep if I didn't get my biscuits! Finally mum got so annoyed with me for not letting her go to sleep so she went out to the kitchen and got one biscuit. It wasn't even a whole biscuit, just a tiny part of one, more like a crumb, but I realised I better take it and be quiet. Didn't want to push my luck too far in one night. Since then mum has changed the way she hangs her jeans over the chair, because I can't get to the pockets anymore. It turned out that mum figured I'd been there before eating out of her pockets, but it's nothing I will admit to have done.

Sleeping

Another thing I like to do is sleep, and I can sleep almost anywhere. In beds, under beds, in the sofa, on the floor and it's great getting to lie in mum's lap while she tries to get some stuff done on the computer! Usually when I get to do that, mum gets pins and needles in her leg which makes her leg to fall asleep as well, and then she puts me down on the floor again. There are different ways of sleeping, either curled up like a little ball or stretched out on one side. Another great way of sleeping is stretching out like a skin rug. It is really comfortable lying with the hind legs stretched out backwards! That position is also very comfortable while chewing a bone or a toy. Apparently it looks totally ridiculous in some humans eyes, because mum has often got the question if it's normal for a dog to lie like that. Mum always tells them she has no idea, but that it's one of my favourite positions.

Sometimes if mum has to get up during the night she always looks down on the floor to make sure I'm not right under her feet. It has happened that all she saw of me was my hind legs and tail sticking out from under her bed. Very comfortable indeed!

Going in the car

I love going for rides in the car, and when we do, I sit in the back seat looking out through the side window. It has happened that I fallen down on the floor if mum had to step on the breaks because of some idiots stepping out just in front of her car without even looking. When it's happened, mum always gets terrified and asks me how I'm doing and if I'm OK, and I always crawl back up in the seat again. She has threatened to get one of those kids chairs to put me in, or a seatbelt, but I don't think I'd like it. I like to have my freedom and to be able to move around! The first time I was going to get groomed, mum had decided to go to Maria, my breeder. Mum thought it would be nice for Maria to see what had become of me and how I looked, and also nice for me to get to see my sister Harrieth again. It takes a while to get to the breeder, and you have to go on the motorway which is a road where you are allowed to drive fast. Mum really loves driving, and specially fast but she got a bit alarmed when suddenly she saw me in the mirror, crawling up on the little shelf behind the backseat. I stayed there all the way to the kennel, and it was a great spot, I could see everything! The only scary thing was when mum had to use the windscreen wiper, it nearly made me jump back down on the seat.

I also don't mind sitting in the car waiting for mum, so when she has to go grocery shopping I come along and sit in the car while she does the shopping. She used to ask her parents to look after me when she had to go shopping because I hate to be on my own, but now we always go shopping together. Of course we don't go shopping when it's really hot, because a really hot car with a dog inside isn't a very good combination, and the same thing goes for when it's really cold. Mum tries to go shopping at hours when there aren't too many other people there so she can get her shopping done quickly. Usually when she comes back, I've moved from the back seat where my blanket is, to the drivers seat. That is the second best place in the car, well the best when mum isn't there, because you can really see everything that's happening on the parking! Also, in case someone would get the idea of breaking in to the car, all I have to do is stand up and put my paws on the steering wheel and hoot the horn! Just imagine how scared a burglar would get seeing me who really looks dangerous, and then if the horn starts hooting!!

Playing

Another interest I have is playing, and I love to shake my head so my ears are flapping! Usually I grab the towel inside the door and shake it really hard. The towel by the way, is kept there for rainy days so mum can dry my paws coming in from walks. Quite often I also pretend I'm a big mean dog. I try to play that game at least once a day because it's so much fun! It starts with me lurking on mum, and when she isn't looking my way, I attack her! Usually mum is sitting in the sofa watching TV, and I can be lying in the sofa too, or on the floor, then I just jump up with my paws on her shoulders trying to get that hair cord out of her hair. To be able to do this, it's best if mum starts leaning forwards to get the remote from the table, or maybe a cup of tea or coffee! When I start attacking her like that, mum knows there is no way she can go on watching TV, she has to play with me! So, she takes off her glasses and that thing from her hair and gets down on the floor so we can play! I'm growling and showing my teeth trying to look really mean, and at the same time my tail is going so much mum thinks I'll take off like a helicopter! I really enjoy this game, and it's so much fun! I kind of go around her and nudge her, and mum is saying "Oh what a big mean dog I've got here!" The best part is if I manage to sit down on mum's head, because that means I've won the game! Ant it's strange, because I always seem to win. Maybe it's because when mum gets down on the floor to play with me, I just have to sit on her hair and then she can't move.

When mum took me to my kennel for my first grooming, I played that way with my sister Harrieth. Maria - my breeder - and mum said it was so much fun to watch, because my sister and I both played the same way, trying to sit on the other ones head. That could be the other reason I always win when mum and I play that game: I'm the only dog, and I don't think it would be fair if mum sat on my head, so maybe she lets me win!? Anyhow, I'm glad mum plays that game with me, and I know the rules. If I'm getting too rough, mum lets me know, by growling at me and showing her teeth off! When she does that, I know what to do: I give her big kisses and stop playing rough.

As you can see, there are quite a few things that I find interesting. Another thing you might think is an interest is collars, since I got four of them, although I only use one. First I've got the one I was wearing when I moved in with mum. It's a nature coloured leather collar, and when that one started to get too small, mum got me another leather collar. It's black, and kind of like a belt if you see what I mean. It was a bit too long, so mum decided to take out her scissors and cut it off a bit. She sat at the kitchen table cutting and cutting, so I soon thought that she would cut it too short. Little leather pieces were flying all over the kitchen, so you can see why I was worried! But finally mum seemed satisfied with her scissors work and to my surprise, there was still enough left of the collar to go around my neck!

I also have a silver chain, kind of a choking chain. I don't like that collar one bit, except the silver colour looks nice to my black coat. The reason mum got that for me was that when we went to that school thing, the teachers said that a choking chain was the best type of collar to use. But, as I said, I don't like that collar at all, and every time mum put it on, I started to walk in a weird crouched way, a few steps behind her, and she said it looked as if she was abusing me and that I was terrified of her. She found it embarrassing going for walks with me when I used that way of walking. I told mum to convince the teachers that I suffered from an allergy against nickel and tell them I couldn't wear a chain like that, but mum said that she didn't think they'd buy that story. So, she only made me wear that silly collar in class, and I tried to walk normal with it, but I never liked it.

Then mum decided she didn't like the look of my leather collar, she said it looked to clumsy on me, and also she got a bit tired of my ideas of fun when she was putting that collar on. You see, I figured out this very amusing thing to do when mum was going to put that collar on. I started out sitting nicely, and as soon as mum started to close the collar and it was nearly closed, I threw myself very quickly against one side and stood on my head! That move of course made the collar open again, and I found it totally amusing, but mum didn't agree. She said it delayed us in getting out since I did that over and over, I just thought it was a fun game that could be played endlessly! So, mum decided to get me another type of collar, and we got one that is really nice. It's also black leather and it has a little silver coloured chain and it's called a half choke collar I believe. It's much easier to put on since it's just slipped over my head, and I think it looks great when I'm in work. There mum lets me have the collar on all day, kind of like a uniform, and that silver chain thing hanging down my chest really looks good against my black coat!

When we went to get that collar from the doggy-food-store, and the man was helping mum getting the right size for me, she asked if I would be OK wearing it all day long at work. The nice man - who doesn't get angry when I steal biscuits in the store - said it was no problem since it's not tight, and I wouldn't be able to get it off myself because of my big ears. Now, I like that man, but I didn't think it was nice of him saying I have big ears! I know that he and his wife breeds poodles, and as far as I know the ears of a poodle aren't the smallest in the world either! I didn't say to the man I got a bit offended, because that store is one of the few I'm allowed in to, and he does give me treats sometimes.

Apart from those collars, I have a bright yellow reflecting collar which mum puts on me when it's dark. She says it helps people coming in cars to spot me. Otherwise they probably wouldn't see me since I'm black, and they might run over me! And, sometimes when we're off to something special, like a birthday party, I get to wear my red bandanna, and I think it looks great on me!

I think I've managed to tell you about most of my interests, and there are a few things that I don't like here in life. I don't like getting baths, and I don't like getting groomed. When mum combs and brushes me, I think it's enough to get one side done, since I can walk with the undone side against the walls. And I don't like when mum decides to clean my ears, I think she could leave my ears alone. Usually I let her clean them since she told me that if my ears get too dirty, they could fall off! I must admit it sounds a bit strange with ears falling off, and I wouldn't be surprised if mum made that up just to scare me. But I rather play it safe, what if mum didn't make it up, and my ears would fall off! It would never be the same again shaking a glove or a towel without my ears flapping!

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Copyright Yvonne Eriksson - 2003