Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Election day...

... or "Everything I needed to know about government, I learned from dog clubs."

Well, yesterday was something called Election day and my human companions dutifully went to cast their "vote."

This is something I'm not really clear on. I guess the humans go and say who they want to represent them in their government. But I don't see the point. I thought that a few people were supposed to control everything -- at least, that's how I was brought up. If you have people in government who are not in that group, don't they just gum up the works? Don't they prevent progress? Don't they make it so that the country can't move forward? And what happens if they have someone in government who doesn't know enough about their breed? If you ask me, these "elections" should merely be a formality. If the wrong person gets chosen, just declare the whole thing invalid and go back to some arbitrary set of people you do want to be in office. All problems solved!

Oh, and the humans came home grumbling about how this Election day being in November is a problem because it gets dark so early and the weather is often bad and the parking lot where they went stinks. If it were earlier in the year, they could still go "vote" after "work" and still have some daylight... and a chance to avoid rain, cold, and/or snow. They were speculating on whether a "constitutional amendment" would be needed to alter this. Again I am confused. What's a big deal about that? Just change the constitution and be done with it! I know some people who can get that done, no problem! As long as they agree with it, that is.

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

First big snow of the season...

... and it was a good one. Last Friday night and during the day Saturday we got about 8 or 9 inches.

Now, you know that Estrelas like snow. It can get cold up there in the mountains! I have a very warm, fluffy coat. To me, an indentation in a pile of snow is maybe even better as a bed than a hole I dug myself in the dirt. It's a toss-up. I do like tracking the dirt inside to "bring the outside in." But the nice thing about snow is, you can make it yellow. And you can eat some if you get thirsty (not the yellow kind).

At any rate, the big dumb wolfhound puppies had never seen snow before. They were quite bewildered by it. Here is a picture of the floor-digger. She looks like she has no idea what to do!



On the other hand, here is one of me on Friday night:



You have to look close to make out my eyes in amongst the snowflakes. I was really running fast. Contrast that to the big floor-digging dummy, who just stood there for the longest time.

Oh, and here is a pretty picture of a tree the next morning.



So after things quieted down outside, the humans let me go out into my pen by the duck house (as if they had any choice in the matter). I would like to stay out there all the time, but the humans do not want me to, complaining that I will not go inside that cute little cabin they put in my pen for me. I can't help it -- I can't see out of that thing. So I humor them, for now. Anyway I quite enjoyed the piles of snow on Saturday and Sunday but by Monday, the floor inside the pen was all dry. And now, the snow is almost all gone. But I know there will be more on its way soon!