Flurry

Toff

We have a new arrival in Doggy Heaven, a somewhat “large” Basset called Toff. The dogs are whispering that Toff was very rich on Earth, his family owned a dog food factory. Toff had a billion tins of dog food, the soft and meaty, yummy type. He may have been the richest dog on Earth.

Toff is strolling in the park with a pack of curious admirers. “Stupid,” says Loba, “he was not able to bring the tins with him to Heaven. Toff is not interesting without his tins; he does not want to play.”

A black Labrador called Charlie told me that Toff was a good dog on Earth, he gave a lot of free food to homeless shelters. Loba scoffed, “only because he realized he had no friends after hogging all the food for himself and the tins were out of date and unsaleable anyway. Toff does not really care about the homeless dogs. He only cares about himself.”

Charlie did not agree, he said Toff had created a yearly award of 1000 tins to feed deserving street dogs. It is called The Toff Award.

“Yeah,” said Loba, “it is tax deductible.”

Then Charlie called Loba negative, I guess that is to expect from a permanently positive Labrador.

Toff is walking with a confident stride. I think I keep out of his way; he reminds me of the bully dogs.

Bite Marks on Furniture

Mom and Dad are polishing their dining room table and chairs.

“What are we going to do with Flurry’s bite marks on the legs,” asked Mom? “They are too deep to sand away.”

They decided to just smooth the edges of the holes and polish over.

“Flurry lefts his marks,” said Dad. “Yeah,” said Mom, “scratch marks on the doors as well.”

I think they are pleased to have little memories from me.

Mjauu Too

Dear Dairy, we have a difficult situation to deal with. The cats in Heaven say that the dogs are harassing the cats on Earth. It started with a cat called Miss Kiss that told another cat that when she lived on Earth, a neighboring dog constantly attacked her. When she was stalking a bird, the dog would come out of nowhere and chase her away, if she were sleeping in the sun, the same. The dog seemed to think this was a fun game.

I can see this was irritating to the cat.

Well, then, another cat said this happened to him as well, Mjauu Too, was the phrase, and then another one and another one, Mjauu Too, Mjauu Too, Mjauu Too until the air was filled with so many Mjauu Too that the noise got over to Doggy Heaven.

It seems that dogs harassing cats on Earth is a widespread problem. I am confused, my old doubts about being a real dog are back. I mean, the cat chased me away, it is not how it is supposed to be, is it? Maybe, I am not a dog, I might be a sort of human, or something in between, like a pet. I am quite confused about this; I don’t know my identity.

I need to talk to Dr. Goldie about this.

Letter From Zorro

Dear Master and Mistress, this is Zorro speaking, the late pet Flurry is taking my dictation. First, I like to congratulate you on still being in good health on Earth, as you know, the Lady Loba and myself went to our eternal rest some time ago. We send our warmest regards to Master and Mistress, and would like you to know, that we still are at your service. Now we are looking after your pet Flurry, he is comfortable and doing well in Doggy Heaven. I am concerned that the garden in North America is not kept free of varmints, security is lacking, but I assure you that would not have happened on my watch and ~~I am teaching Flurry some basic skills in this area,~~ ~~but he is disinterested and hard to train.~~ The Lady Loba and I are well and safe in Doggy Heaven. Signed: your valuable servant Zorro and the Lady Loba.

Band Practice

The cats in Cat Heaven have started to make a racket when we have band practice, but we just ~~howl~~ sing louder.

Zorro has discovered that I am writing a diary for Mom and Dad. He seems upset.

Loba’s Climbing Skills

Diary, I remember Mom and Dad often talking about Loba’s climbing skills. When she was a puppy, Mom and Dad put up a 3 feet wire net dog enclosure in the garden. Loba wagged her tail goodbye and jumped out in the first 5 minutes. After a while, Zorro was also out.

Then they upgraded to a fence about 6 feet tall. Loba climbed up the side, heaved herself over the top while the wire swayed under her weight, and taking gigantic leap to the other side.

Zorro could not get over this fence and he was furious. Mom and Dad added a barbed wire leaning inwards on the top, but it still would not contain Loba. She climbed on the metal netting and scraped through the barbed wire without flinging. After that, they gave up on fences and Loba and Zorro were not allowed to have a large dog enclosure. They had to stay inside a safe smaller walled area, which Zorro was very angry about. He says that Loba just can’t behave in a civilized way, that she has street dog habits.

Fortunately, Mom and Dad soon moved to another much larger house with a huge garden that had a tall brick wall which Loba could not defeat, because there were no grip for her paws. The garden was a lot of work for Zorro to keep varmint free. “I was young and strong,” said Zorro, I was Rey da la Casa and feared in the neighborhood. Mom and Dad said he and Loba did a good job. All this happened in South America before I was born.

My Education

Dear Dairy, I think I should have more respect from Uncle Zorro because I have been to Doggy University, the Agility Academy to be exact and I have a degree in Agility. Aunt Loba is immensely proud of this fact, she often mentions it to her friends. She and Uncle Zorro never got an education, but Zorro denies this. “Master trained us to sit,” he says.

In charge of the Academy was an important lady called Professor Morag. Every class, I went to greet Professor Morag and show my respect, but she barely gave me a glance and told me to get back in line. I was in awe of Morag.

We had to learn tunnel, jump obstacles and then advanced subjects like teeter -tooter and weave pools. I was good, I am a Poodle. Professor Morag had two Shelties of her own in the class, they were good too. Some of the other dogs in the class struggled.

One time, a Pug disappeared in the tunnel. When he got out, he had pooped. I don’t know if he just needed to poop, or if he was scared, or if he was protesting being in the class. I suspect he protested. Morag did not like the Pug after that. We other dogs giggled.

**Exhausted after studying hard for my Degree in Agility**

After a lot of classes, I graduated with flying colors and Elise put me in a competition. There were some of the dogs from the class but also a lot of other dogs, including Morag’s highly educated Shelties. The course was easy, and I won first place! One of Morag’s Shelties came second. “You are not meant to beat your teacher” said Morag jokingly to Elise. The Sheltie was angry, I think Morag was angry too.

Elise entered me into more competitions, but I was done. Agility was not what I wanted to do with my life. I pleased my parents by getting the degree, but enough was enough. I simply refused to do the course and returned to the sideline and got disqualified. I did this on three separate competitions until my family got the message! Not for me!

They were devastated, tried to convince me I had a great future, talked about my talent, about the sacrifices they made to pay for the Agility Academy. When that did not work, they told me they were disappointed, that they do not understand. I did not change my mind; agility was not my thing.

Morag and the Shelties were pleased that I quit.

Varmint Education Day

Dear Diary, not a funny day. Uncle Zorro has been annoying and overbearing. It started right after breakfast, he asked me to come and sit with him for a while, that he wanted to show me something. I thought it could be a bone, a piece of bacon, or at least a bouncy ball, but it was that unpleasant book by Dr. Bite Bark: Varmint Identification for all Dogs.

Zorro said he needed to educate me. I had seen him read the varmint book many times with great concentration.

“Here, Flurry, here is a squirrel. See the long furry tail. These are very common, in fact, they are inundating Master’s garden. Did you ever see any squirrels there?”

I looked at the pictures, yes fairly familiar, but no, I can’t say for sure they were in Master’s garden. Maybe they were the annoying creatures that threw nuts at me.

“Really,” said Zorro. “Look again. Long tails, scurrying up and down the oak tree? Have you really not seen them?”

“NO, I answered strongly. I have not seen them, and I don’t want to do this anymore!”

Zorro did not take no for an answer. “Let’s change page,” he said. “Look here, this is a rabbit. Long ears, soft fur, pretending to be cute. Did you ever see a rabbit in masters garden?” I said, maybe.

Truth is, ok, I did see the squirrels and the rabbits, but I do not care for them. I looked away. And why would I care? I remember Mom putting out a carrot for the rabbit at Christmas, she liked it.

Zorro let me go. I hid in the doghouse for the rest of the day.

This is what Zorro does not accept: I came from a breeder; I have breeding, and I am a pet. Inbreeding scoffs Zorro, whatever that means. I start to think Zorro has Chowchow in him. He can be quite bad tempered.

Can Heaven be Full?

Dare Dary, we finally got rid of the fleas. They got herded into their own Heaven, the authorities were very apologetic about the flea breach, but we must avoid crowds for a while. Which brings me some deep thoughts.

Can Heaven be full? The dogs just keep on coming.

Is there a Heaven for snakes? For mosquitos? For bacteria? Clearly the fleas have a Heaven. Why is it right to exterminate bacteria that cause illness but not rattlesnakes? I have read that there are good bacteria, but surely non-poisonous snakes can also kill rats and mice? I have heard that cats can deal with snakes, maybe they could share their Heaven with snakes.

Existential questions are tiring, says Aunt Loba, she does not think I should worry about these things. She says the key to happiness is to eat well, stay with your pack, play hard and sleep a lot. That is what we do in Doggy Heaven.

Pork chops for dinner. Chuletas, as Uncle Zorro calls them. He now thinks the source of the flea infestation was the Chihuahua he hugged at the Gardening Club.