… sniff…. Sniff…. What is that smell? Sniff… sniff…. Oh.. it smells so good…. Could it be? Is it possible that my people are already getting ready for the Thanksgiving meal?

Sniff, sniff…. Oh, I so hope this year we have roasted Squirrel… every year I beg and beg… I shake-a-paw… I sit, I’m a good boy… anything I can do to get them to cook roasted squirrel… but every year it’s just turkey. I’m not complaining though… that boy always seems to drop some turkey near me… I wonder if he does it on purpose? I hope he drops some of that pumpkin pie again too! Last year he left his plate on the coffee table with a whole piece of pie on it… all I can say is that the pie (nor I) were anywhere to be seen when he came back for it… Slurp… Slurp…

… Speaking of doing tricks…. I sure had fun at that People Agility thing I went to a couple of weeks ago… I think they call it ‘Canine Performance Events’ but I am absolutely sure it is all about people doing tricks…

… have you ever been to one of these things? No? Well, let me tell you how it works… I admit I had never been to one of these so I didn’t know exactly what to expect… but as the day went on I figured out what was going on… the cool thing is that there were lots and lots of other dogs there… I have not sniffed that much new dog butt since I went to DogFest.

… As far as I can tell the event was for dogs to teach people how to play on a playground… I thought they would have already known how but nope… they apparently go to these events to learn how to play…

So there’s one group of people, I think they’re called judges… I didn’t see any of these people in robes so I don’t think they were ‘real’ judges… but anyway real or not they built this really cool playground inside a fence… there was a see-saw, a swinging tire, a bunch of things to jump over and run around and … the coolest things ever… these long tunnels that the dogs (and sometimes humans) got to play hide and seek inside of…

… anyway, these judges set up all these cool play things and then the people (without any dogs by the way) would run around the playthings… and here’s where it starts to get interesting… not a single one of them jumped over anything, crawled through anything or even stopped to sniff anything… they just went around in circles studying the playground stuff but not getting too close… it’s like none of them had never seen a see-saw before… this went on for a while… and you could tell that the people were ‘really’ serious about walking around this stuff… some of them were even talking to themselves… “Tunnel” “Big Jump” “Tire” …. I guess they were just trying to memorize what they needed to do?

… Remember how I taught my person to play fetch? Well, what happened for the rest of the day was way cooler than that! For the rest of the day, the dogs that I had met spent time in the fence teaching their people how to play on the playground stuff… no, I’m not kidding…

For instance, there was this poodle that I met earlier in the morning… her name was Miss Fluffy… and I should add here that I think she was a mixed breed… part poodle…. Part foxxxxxy… GRRRRRR… that curly blonde hair… those long thin legs… that cute little puff at the end of her tail… those… ummm…. Sorry about that… (I kind of have a thing for poodles)… where is that cold water pond when I need it?

So, where was I? Oh, yeah…. Miss Fluffy got her turn to take her person around the course… the first thing Miss Fluffy did was show the person how to crawl into the tunnel… yes, that’s exactly what I said… how did she do it you ask?… well, I answer, Miss Fluffy ran into the tunnel… got about half way through it and then…. Yep, you guessed it… laid down… you could tell that the person wasn’t too keen on the idea of learning this trick though…

Miss Fluffy’s person went to one side and looked in… then the other side… then back to the other side… she called Miss Fluffy’s name… snapped her fingers, made that fake ‘I’ve got a treat in my hand’ motion… but she didn’t get the point… so… Miss Fluffy… in all her Divaness just stayed inside the tunnel… until guess what finally happened?

Yep, Miss Fluffy’s person finally figured out how to do the trick… she got down on her paws and crawled into the tunnel… Miss Fluffy waited until she got just about to the end and then… again… with all of her Diva skills… walked out of the other end… Miss Fluffy’s person followed her out…. Then Miss Fluffy made her person chase her around the playground for a while until she caught her and put a leash… a pink sequined lease I might add… on Miss Fluffy… Yeah! The people cheered… Bark! Bark! The dogs yelled… The judges even seemed impressed because they held up these cards with Zeros’ on them… I think that means no one is better?

Miss Fluffy’s person apparently didn’t win any ribbons for her performance, but at least Miss Fluffy could feel proud that she had done her best …
… sniff… sniff… so where is that smell coming from?… PLEEAAASSSEEEE let it be roasted squirrel….