“Com’on my Biscuit! Let’s get ready to go for your walk...”
Woofling my non-barking friends…
On this particular morning this is what I heard my hooman howling like every sunrise before… except today she added something quite unexpected.
“… and after that we will be off Christmas shopping!!!”
I was no stranger to human shopping behaviour, I joined my hooman in this peculiar unfasten habit many a times, a curious sort of foraging in caves mostly filled with things humans really do not need… even in the kill shopping cave human hunt for all the wrong nourishment; but what was surprising to me about my hooman “arf-amation” today, was that apart from kill shopping, my hooman never named another of these scavenging exploration before… so this Christmas expedition must have been as important as nails clipping!!!
Determined to find out what this “Christmas” was, I made the conscious decision to ask about it to some of the “dogs & bitches” during my morning walk to the hood.
As I said before, one of my favourite part of the day is my morning walk, apart from sniffing the latest news, I like a good dose of tongue “waggle”
First I spotted Mister, a black Afghan-hound, he arrived in the company of Uncle Buck, an English Bulldog, and Moneypenny, a beautifully scented white and brown Papillon.
“Hey guys!!” I happily barked as I approached them
“Good morning Sir Biscuit” Mister greeted me elegantly
“Wotcha mate!!!” Uncle Buck harrfed
“Hello Biscuit” harmoniously howled Moneypenny
Whilst our humans caught up with their news, we caught up with ours
“Did you ear poor Mortimer’s howling last night? Uncle Buck asked
“No I didn’t” Mister cut in “… but we were travelling well after sun down, back from a visit in Yorkshire, my human’s sibling lives in a den that seems to be as big as this whole p...”
“Oh that must have been nice…” Moneypenny cut in and then pressed on with more osseous matters “… I heard it, isn’t it terrible what some dogs are made to eat?!
We all agreed
“I watch out for the left corner of the central water hole if I were you guys, the bark on the street is that Mortimer has been sick there, after his ordeal last night… poor chap!”
Our bark and woofle carried on a while longer, but when the latest news run out of beef juice, I took the opportunity to bring forward my question.
“Guys… I am going Christmas shopping after my walk, and I was wondering if any of you… well… know what… Christmas is…”
“OH YES!!!” Uncle Buck barked excitedly, “Christmas is a day where humans dig out the kill they saved up for six months, they get together in the feeding area of the den and eat till they drop”
“Till they drop?” I asked try to understand, where would they drop to? Would they get hurt when they did?
“NO NO NO NO NO!!!!” Interrupted Mister, “Christmas is the time when many humans dress up in their best coats and meet up in each other’s dens to talk about politic, money and have fine and expensive drinkies”
“What’s politic?” I wanted to know
“Well… my human says that politic is all about putting their heads together and share…”
“FLEES!!” Uncle Buck yelped.
“Don’t be a puppy BucK”, Mister growled a little “… share ideas”, he proudly finished...
“Another word for flees”, Uncle Buck whispered to me
Ideas? Dropping after eating? I was getting more and more confused.
“I don’t agree”, whelped tentatively Moneypenny, unsure this barking could be interrupted with yet again another option.
“Christmas is a day where the human female prepares the kill she foraged for months, shares it with her mate and pups, spends the whole day gathering gift she hunted for on many moons and gives them to all the members of the pack, and then becomes frustrated when sundown comes and she has to lick the whole place clean while everyone else sit on their tails doing nothing!”
This… Christmas, did not sound good at all!!!
As far as I could tell, my poor hooman would spend it running around try to please everyone with gifts, whilst family and important strangers were going to sit on their tails, sharing flees and do nothing but eat the entirety of our food resources till they dropped... to somewhere, and while they were down there… my hooman would end up having to lick the whole den clean by herself!!!
I DID NOT LIKE THE SOUND OF THIS AT ALL, AND FOR THE SAKE OF MY HOOMAN, I HAD TO PUT A STOP TO IT!!!
“Cough.. Cough..!”
We all turned around toward the noise and saw an old Alaskan Malamute.
“Who might you be?” Enquired politely Mister while sniffing the old dog’s butt as per protocol.
“I am Patch… I was just passing by and I could not help but ear your wooffling… I thought it best to come and shed some light on this Christmas business, because after listening to all these… hum... explanations... this little chap here…” He said pointing at me “… couldn’t look more confused if he found out that is mama was a cat!”
We all sat around the newcomer, ready for him to dig the truth out from this field of confusion!
“As you know, Christmas is celebrated on a single sun up to sun down cycle in the entire year, and the real reason behind this most peculiar human habit a that it serves as a kind of reminder to…”
“...TO NEVER FORGET TO USE FLEE POWDER!!!” cut in Unckle Buck.
“Honestly Buck…” Mister quickly hushed him “… what is it with you and flees???”
“I don’t know what you mean, I am sure”
Uncle Buck moaned under his whiskers as he nonchalantly sat up to have a good chin scratch.
“… well… ahem… as I was saying…” Patch resumed his explanation “… as a reminder to care and love each other, and they do this by getting together, offer each other kill and presents, and spend time with their pack and sometimes with other packs from far away dens!!!”
Patch explanation shed some light on my Christmas mystery quest, but only a feeble one if I have to be honest…
Why did humans need a special time to be reminded of the importance of something as obvious as that of caring and loving each other?
To us dogs this notion is as evident as sniffing someone’s butt!!!
Our mission as dogs is all about caring and loving our humans always, to me the notion of dedicating one sun up to sun down for this task every 12 moon cycles, was as alien as… worms!!!
Till our next woofling,
Lots of licks,
Biscuit
If you would like some info about my hooman's pastel portraits or visit her shop go to:
... and don't forget to spread the scent and leave a nice licky like!!!
As you can imagine, this episode took my hooman and I a lot of time to do, we will need to catch up with the next blogs, so keep going walkies and we will be back with EP.19 in spring :)
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