Reminiscing. Back in the old days we had 3 great dogs. Our bullmastiff Harvest was the baby -- biggest but youngest. All of them were scary smart but Harv always tried to be like a people. He was too young to remember his first holiday season, as he was the puppy for my birthday, but the next year was a keen joy! Harvest slept in a kennel box in the bedroom and that 1st Christmas James & I crept to the living room to hang pet store stockings over the television as a surprise -- we didn't have a fire place -- & place boxes of gifts under the nice tree we had. :) That morning Harv woke up, went to the big living room widows to say hello to the Sun as he did every day, but under his still half closed sleepy eyes his nose began to twitch. The tree was all lit up & he looked at it in seeming wonder from bottom to top with his eyes opening wide like a computer animated TV commercial dog! Gypsy (the black dog) & Deyanna (the grey dog) were already woofing for their stockings, being old timers by then, so Harv quickly turned see what the fuss. He did a triple take at the TV so that you could almost here him exclaim "WHA!??" He flipped his entire body around in one swoop to look at us as if to say "OMG that dude in the red suit I saw in the cartoons was here last night! I don't know how he got past the cat but he was HERE! Santa Paws is REAL!"He bounced his already large body up & down like a Baby Huey in excitement. Deyanna sat up on her hind legs to offer a perfect movie star paw wave & Gypsy sang out a hearty chorus of roo-roo-roo-roo's. I moved to take the stockings down but noticed that Harvest had disappeared. I called, "where'd ya go buddy?" He came bounding back into the room with his favorite toy -- a stuffed pink pig -- in his mouth. He sat that toy upright on its legs then used his nose to push Piggy forward towards the tree! He was sharing with his buddy! We gave the dogs their stockings & wrapped toys to let them tear open as they pleased. As Harvest pulled each item out of his stocking he paused with it in his mouth to show it first to Piggy.
To me, that was one of the coolest Christmas' ever!
-- Tree
