Ew, De Good Dog

What an interesting day today was!  After it started out with taking a clean, I wasn't sure what was going to happen next.  But it turned out it was really fun.

After Mom and me hung out, she went back to that Flim Flam place, and just as I hoped, she came back smelling like bacon.  Yum.  She also brought Angie for me to meet.  Angie loves me.  I love Angie.  I love Angie so much it was hard for me to remember how bad I had to go to the bathroom.  We went for a little walk together with Mom and Angie let me know that I'm a good dog, a beautiful dog, and that she wants a dog.  I hope she gets one; then maybe I can play with it!

Mom and Angie had to go somewhere for a while.  When they came back just Mom came inside and Angie went to her house.  We had another little walk, and when we came back home Mom did one of my favorite of her tricks, where she sits down on the front steps to pet me and rub me and tell me how good I am.  Today she seemed to have extra fun petting me.  She said that being clean made me extra soft and smell good.  She kept saying I smelled like Ew, De Good Dog.  I don't know why this is a good thing.  But it made her laugh, and that made me happy.

That afternoon we went back out on the balcony.  Mom gave me a present - another new Blankey!  Now I have a place to lay when we're outside together.  I don't know why I never noticed how fun the balcony is before.  I guess it's because it's been so hot, and being hot makes me kind of grumpy.  But today was really nice, so we did, Mom on her chair and me on my Blankey.

After a while she pulled out a new thing.  I didn't know what it was at first.  It looked like somebody had stuck a lot of little teeth on a mitten.  It's bright red, like my leash, so that was kind of fun.  It didn't smell like much.  Mom put it on her hand and then tried to pet me with it and that made me nervous for a minute - where did her hand go and what was that weird thing that was trying to pet me!  It could have been trying to eat me, for all I knew!

But then, oh my gosh!  I discovered that the tooth-mitten was wonderful.  Really really really wonderful, actually.  When she pet me with it it made me go very still so she wouldn't stop doing it.  She pet me all over with nice, slow pets.  From my head to my tail.  Through the thick fur on my chest.  She tickled my belly with it.  Over and over and over, she pet me, and sometimes she followed it up with her other hand, which was nice because somehow the tooth-mitten made a lot of my hair come off, so her Mom-hand could brush that away.  One time she asked me, "Why aren't you wagging your tail?  Doesn't this make you happy, Henry?"  If I could, I would have told her that sometimes me not wagging my tail is like her tears of joy.  You look sad, but really you're as happy as it's possible to be.

She did this for a really, really long time.  Afterwards I lay down.  The rub and the sun made me so sleepy.  She started bugging me again almost immediately.  I swear, sometimes it seems like Mom wants attention all the time!  But she didn't need me to do anything but stay still.  This time she was messing with my claws.  Sometimes the clip-clip-clip noise made me nervous and I would tense up a little; but she'd just hold the paw up in the air, and actually it was easier to relax than be worried, because really nothing bad was happening.  So I'd relax, and she'd go back to clip-clip-clip.  It wasn't wonderful like the tooth-mitten, and I don't know what she did, but the next time I stood up, my paws felt kind of nice.

This evening, I'm soft and I smell like Ew De Good Dog, my feet feel nice, I'm super relaxed, I made a new friend, discovered a new fun place in my very own house, got a brand new Blankey, and learned that sometimes peas show up in the bathtub.  Today turned out to be great, after all.