I am totally freaking out!

Mom left Sunday for her monthly trip to Canada. Tonight, Dad and I were just hanging out in the office when I hear Mom’s voice… “Hey, Dakota”. I look up and sure enough, I can see Mom through the window that’s sitting on Dad’s desk. Oh boy, Mom’s home! But when I run to the other side of the desk to greet her, she’s gone. Poof! Vanished into thin air.

So I go back to Dad’s chair to look through the window again and sure as I’m born, I can see Mom plain as day. I know she’s here somewhere… but she disappears every time I head in her direction.

Here I am all confused, Mom’s sitting there grinning like the cheshire cat and all Dad says is “Dakota doesn’t understand Skype”.

Will somebody please tell me who Skype is and what he’s done to my Mom?

One of the fun things about getting a new puppy is wondering how different (or similar) he’ll be from your previous pets — because when those similarities or differences start to manifest themselves, we’re most often confronted with fond memories of what it was like when our aging four-leggers were as young as Dakota is now.

Thus far:

• Like Larkin, Dakota can hold it forever but would easily win the prize for the world’s longest pee.
• Like Kisa, Dakota doesn’t bat an eye-lash when he gets a taste of hot, spicy food… I’m talking cuisine that would make half the average population approach with caution. Like Kisa, Dakota is sort of in that “hmm-umm” category, trying to figure out how to get another taste”.
• Like Larkin, Dakota just wants to be next to you and lick you to death.
• Like Kisa, Dakota can’t resist anything made of paper… including the mail and newspapers. His love of toilet paper is unique to him alone.
• Like Larkin, Dakota can’t resist the urge to jump on you when you come into the room (but we’re working on that).
• Like Kisa, Dakota can’t resist an opportunity to hump Larkin. Yeah, I know… Kisa’s a female. And your point is?
• Like Larkin, Dakota can’t resist putting his tongue in Kisa’s ear.
• Like Kisa, Dakota eats so fast he can’t possible taste his food.
• Like Larkin, Dakota likes napping with his back against the front door — especially when it’s really cold and windy. Leonbergers make great draft snakes.
• Like Kisa, Dakota is humanly vocal. Larkin simply barks, albeit rare. Kisa and Dakota converse. They both have a variety of sounds that are much like human conversations, complete with varying inflections and volume.

Life has been a little dull lately. Dad’s been commuting to Boston a lot lately, so he’s leaving the house before 0700 and not getting home until well after 1900. Mom only has to go to the office once a week, but her job has been a really crazy, so she’s on the phone or Skype almost all day.

With both of them so busy, I’ve had to find things to keep myself occupied during the day. I have lots of toys, but a puppy needs new, interesting objects to keep him entertained.

Today, I had a real treat. Mom forgot to put the toilet paper on the high shelf in the bathroom again. And lucky for me, it was a full roll so I was busy shredding for at least a couple of hours.

Look, Mom... textile arts!

Shredding toilet paper is very hard work.

One summer day when Kisa was three or four months old, Tom and I decided to let her roam about the yard while we worked the flower beds. She was old enough to not be underfoot, but still young enough that we knew she wouldn’t wander off.

We had cleared a new flower bed and I was trying to get it planted, but having one heck of a time.  Every five minutes I was misplacing something.  First, my garden gloves went missing. Then my trowel went missing.  Then my spare trowel went missing. Then, the six-pack of pansies I was planting went missing!

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