Annie Speaks

Several of my friends have said that my next book needs to be about our travels written from the perspective of Annie, our 8(ish)-year-old Chihuahua-mix rescue dog.  It’s a cute idea, but I don’t think it could fill more than a couple pages.  After all, she sleeps twenty hours per day.

But just for fun . . .

Dear Diary,

Today began like every other day in this place the hoomans call ‘home’.  I patiently waited behind bars as first light crept into the room.  Eventually the lady they refer to as Mama got out of bed and unlocked my prison cell. I shook my necklace as loudly as I could to see if the man they call Daddy would come play with me.  I even blew my breath under his door. He did not awaken; he always sleeps later.  So Mama and I went out to the driveway.  She obviously has control issues as she insists on following me and even watching as I relieve myself. I feel so sad for her (mental note: lick her later to make her feel better.)  Afterwards, I devoured my scoop of kibble in a personal record of 7.8 seconds, thinking they would perhaps forget they had fed me and do it all over again.  But it didn’t work.  (I’ll try again the next time. And again.)

From here on, I expected the day to be like most others:  cuddle in the hoomans’ laps the way they prefer, sleep a couple hours, eat, poop, repeat.  But they didn’t sit in the recliners today!  They drank that dark hot water while standing.  Something was up!  Maybe this was a special day and I would get fed my next meal early!! (They do that when they leave me alone.) I followed every step they made just in case.

They parked the big white van at the front door.  (They call it Wanda.  By the way, they call me Annie and I answer to it even though it’s not my name—it’s just what they started calling me when I adopted these poor lonely people several years ago.)  Soon Mama and Daddy started carrying things out to Wanda.  I helped as much as I could, but I have bad knees (and no thumbs), so I just followed them, OR EVEN BETTER, tried to lead them in the right direction. My services are so underappreciated.  I find that if I go back and forth between Wanda and the home it speeds up the process.  These people are so disorganized; what would they do without me?  Finally they slid the door closed with all three of us inside.  That means ROAD TRIP!

I crawled up on my window seat and started my next chore—sleeping.  Over the next few hours I had to remind the hoomans to stop and take a few breaks.  (If I don’t remind them to ‘go outside’ they might wet their seats.)  Tennessee had some soft grass.  We eventually stopped in some place they called New River Gorge in West Virginia.  There was the requisite photo—these hoomans must recognize what a celebrity I was on the streets of the city because they are ALWAYS taking my picture—just like the paparazzi who used to chase me. We went down a bunch of stairs.  At some point I realized there wouldn’t be any grass at the bottom so I just pooped right there on the wooden steps.  Someday I look forward to seeing Daddy’s collection of my poop—he’s always picking it up when we travel.  I just haven’t figured out where he stores it.

It was a long, exhausting day.  I’ll sleep good tonight.  When we go on road trips, I get to sleep in the bed with the hoomans.  Mama especially likes to feel my feet against her stomach, back, and face.  Good night!