Meeting new people and new dogs

 QT here. It’s been quite a week. After I met Sid’s girl, I met this new beagle, Toirin, and his boy. Wow, that Toirin is cute and a lot more fun than the old beagles I am living with. He likes to do what I like to do: run and play and roll down the hills. But he is twice as tall as me! I can walk under his belly without slinking! I have never met a beagle with such long legs. He says mine are the shortest legs in the world, but he is not even 2 years old, what does he know? Still I was sad to see him go home with his boy. The house is really quiet now that he’s gone.

I get to run around in the yard more now that I come into the house – well, I come into the house if no people are near the back door or if no one starts talking when I am getting ready to walk in. I still don’t quite understand what people will do. I totally get what dogs will do, but people are still a mystery to me. I do eat my treats now, instead of burying them – I have figured out that there is plenty of food here, I don’t have to really save it. But sometimes, I just have to bury that stuffed bunny in the cushions. You never know when you need a security bunny. I took Mom’s slippers from under the table and brought them onto the chaise with me. They are the perfect place to hide my Nylabone and the pink pig. (Mom has big feet.) She took the slippers back but left my toys.

There is a girl who comes to take care of us during the day, she smells like lots of dogs. Bridget said she is the Dog Walker, but that they can’t go walking until I learn about walking on a lead. I think that is the thing they hook onto my collar that keeps me from being able to get away. Bridget likes to go walking so she wasn’t very happy to just run around the yard. She likes to prance around in front of the other dogs because she is the boss of us. That’s what she thinks, and Sid and Kaya do too! I guess I do too; since I don’t know what to do all the time, it’s good to have someone show me.

I heard a dog barking while I was outside tonight and I gave him  a piece of my mind. I guess I was pretty loud because Mom heard me; I think it was the first time I have barked since I got here. I only bark when I have something to say. Sid barks for cookies, Toirin barks for anything that moves, including the air, Kaya barks at Toirin when he bugs her with all his barking. Bridget doesn’t bark. Period.