What a week. Doc and I worked at warp speed trying to make sure all the patients were taken care of. Working as a therapy team helps, but sometimes the pressure of the job gets to you anyway.

It was only Tuesday when the stress started taking its toll. Doc was well into her third counseling session when I noticed she kept tugging at the neck of her dress. Finally, she looked down and started laughing, the tag of her dress was in the front. She had been walking around all morning with her dress on backwards. Her excuse was that it’s dark when she dresses at five in the morning. My thought was that she was starting to lose it. On Thursday, she opened the refrigerator in the evening to find a box of cereal she had put it there instead of the cupboard. Luckily the milk was where it belonged. By Friday morning she was really fried and yelled at me for not eating my breakfast fast enough. I ran a hid until she calmed down. Then, while running around the kitchen in her bare feet she stubbed her toe on the baseboard and said some words you would never hear in church. Poor Doc, it was time for an intervention. So, I called some of Doc’s college friends to help.

You need a sense of humor to get through life, but you also need to let your hair down sometimes.   Her college friends rolled up in the evening, cooked out on the grill and told war stories about their youth. It was just what the doctor ordered. I could see the stress leave her face and she finally relaxed. Two of the guys even threw the tennis ball for me over and over.  I needed to de-stress too because I hadn’t realized how much of Doc’s stress had rubbed off on me.

So, I guess it’s true what Doc’s grandpa use to say ” everything in moderation.” A little work, a little rest and a little play makes for a wonderful, relaxing day.

Doc and I like to go to the farmer’s market after work sometimes. I like the market because the vendors give me treats, kids pet and hug me and cute dogs show up with their humans. Doc just goes to buy produce.

We were standing in line to pay for some lettuce when I saw a good-looking Beagle out of the corner of my eye. I let out a high-pitched bark to get her attention and let her know I wanted to play. Suddenly, two ladies swung around, looked at Doc and said in a judgemental tone, ” I thought he was a therapy dog, he’s not suppose to bark.” I could feel Doc’s energy change immediately. I swear, I thought her head was going to blow off, but she kept her cool. Then she looked the women straight in the eyes and said ” He’s not at work, do you act the same at home as you do at work?” The ladies got the message. I looked up at  Doc and thought how about how thankful I am that she stands up for me and my right to just be a dog.

Some of you humans should learn to chill, you can act so uptight sometimes.

“And though I heard some wise man say

That every dog will have his day

He never mentioned that these dog days get so long.”

The Eagles

Whew, it’s humid and rainy this summer in the midwest! We are officially in the dog days of summer. I thought they were so aptly named because all of us dogs just lay around trying to stay cool, but that’s not what the ancients believed. They blamed the heat on Sirius, the Dog Star that shines during the day along with the sun. You can’t miss it at night, it’s the brightest star in the sky. Doc and I go outside and look at it on clear nights.

The dog days are not such a bad thing really, we all need to slow down. You humans can join in by sitting in the rocker on the  porch with a glass of iced tea, savoring the summer. I like the evenings after supper the best. As the sun sets and the world quiets down, the fireflies come out to play and light up the sky like twinkling stars.  Then, the frogs in the pond start singing in a loud chorus, while the locus hum along. Doc told me when she was little girl, she and the neighbor boy would catch the fireflies in a jar and release them in their bedrooms so they could watch them until they fell asleep. How relaxing to be lulled to sleep by mother nature.

So savor the summer, take time to relax and enjoy, it will be gone before we know it. Meanwhile I am going to contact who ever names stars and see if they will name one Grover. Hopefully it will have a goatee like me.