Paaaarrrrttttyyyyy
No wonder Joan has been in the kitchen so much! She had a party. I could tell something was going on because she was moving all the chairs in different places and then she started putting some nice looking food on the table in the dining room. Much more accessible to me, I thought, than the countertop! But she wouldn't let me get any of it.
But we did get to go to the golf course and she skiied and I ran around. (Now, I realize this was a ploy of hers to get me to be calm at the party.) Ploy it may be, I was happy to run around.
Then the people started coming - first Eileen and Martha and Ann - I know all of them and was very happy to see them. I really wanted to jump on them but was trying my hardest to control myself. Martha noticed. If I don't jump, then my body just becomes a wiggling mass because all my happiness has to come out in some way, so I wiggle. But then lots more people came - many who I have never met. But I could tell that some of them are dog people - they have their own dogs, so I was just fine.
Ray let me lick his hand and so did Pat. Jayson dropped some food on the ground and I got to eat that. Ann wasn't looking and I took a lick of her food - then she saw me. Oops. Walker sat with me on the floor and petted me a lot! Most of the time I was walking around because Joan was walking around and not in one place.
The toughest time for me was when they were all opening presents and were crowded in one area. And then Pat and Lori sat on my bed! Can you believe it? So I didn't have a place to sit. And then the people moved the chairs in a way that blocked me from getting back into the circle, near Joan. But then Jim saw and he moved the chair so I could get in.
At the end of the night, they did a crazy thing to me. It was just Walker, Valerie, Eileen and Ann left. I could hear Valerie talking about testing your dog's intelligence but I was also napping so I wasn't listening too hard to her. The next thing I know, Joan has some treats in her hand. For the first one, she put it under a kitchen towel. At first, I was thinking, "where is the treat?" But then I smelled it under the towel. I looked at Joan because I wasn't sure if I should go ahead and mess with the towel to get the treat. She didn't say anything to me, so I went ahead and put my foot on the towel and used my nose to push under the towel and get the treat. Easy enough.
Then Joan put the second treat under a plastic tupperware. I saw the treat and pushed it with my nose and the plastic moved. Again, I looked at Joan to see if she was going to help and she did not. So I kept pushing it with my nose and it just kept moving on the wood floor - almost under the couch. Then they were talking about how the test might be different on carpet vs. wood floor. Eileen moved the treat and plastic thing to my bed and then I pushed it against a piece of furniture, overturned the plastic container and got my treat! They all clapped for me. Maybe they had had too much to drink because those are not really difficult tasks. Anyway, they all said I was smart - I already knew that. ;-)
After a while everyone left and Joan turned the dishwasher on and we went upstairs to bed. It was pretty late!