Trying To Carry On

Greetings dear friends. This is The Daily Bone and I'm your doggie reporter Chester L. W. Spaniel. 

It's been four days since our sweet Joey dog left us for the Rainbow Bridge, and things sure seem different around here. But still, there are chores and duties to perform. 

I've been busy chasing the Evil Squirrel Cartel out of our yard. Look at this scoundrel trying to get seeds out of the birdie feeder. This feeder automatically closes the seed ports when something heavier than a cardinal sits on it. It worked great for those big bully bird grackles too. 

Duh.

There are two squirrels who've been hanging around our yard lately. I'm pretty sure they're not Fatty White-ears or alias Twinkletoes. Perhaps they're their offspring. Anyhow, they're not very smart.  We can't tell them apart, so we're just going to call them Dum Dum and Ditzy for now. 

These two nut brained miscreants have also been stealing pears from Joey's pear tree. But because of the hot dry summer, the pear crop is pretty dismal anyway. Most of them are small and misshapen. Ghostwriter picked up about two dozen of these from the ground that had either been picked and chewed on by the squirrels, or else were dropped by the tree. I picked up the biggest one for a snack.

Smells good.

Chomp chomp. Tastes OK. 

But something's missing.

Joey's missing, that's what.

I'm not sure what to do about the Double Doggie Homeland Security System now that there's just me. Not that I can't handle the duties alone. Perhaps I should put an ad in the newspaper for a new Special Agent. But not yet. I heard ghostwriter saying something about getting a puppy next summer …

Any mousies in there?

Smells like a stinky chipmunk was hiding in the wood pile.

Bark bark bark! Get lost, squirrels!

Now that I'm an only doggie, I can have rawhide chewies. Joey and I used to fight over these things. It was the only thing we ever fought over. 

What's this?

Hmmmm …

Oh, I remember now! Yum! 

I'm practicing my food watching technique too. 

Grilled chicken, corn on the cob, and fresh tomatoes. Yum.

Chinese take-out. (How am I doing?)

Oh, and I have to say thanks again to the overwhelming outpouring of condolences, POTP, hugs and kisses and purrs, and tributes to our humble Mr. Joey dog. We continue to be amazed at how many pets and people are leaving comments about his going to the Rainbow Bridge. Some are writing entire posts devoted to Joey, while others are putting a link to our doggie blog from their post! Here's a link to Abby Lab's tribute with an amazing poem. thebookofbarkley  Here's a beautiful picture made by Mr. Jack Freckle's and Pipo and Minko's Mom. You can visit them at pipoandminkoandmrjackfreckles . Blogville and the pet blogging community are awesome! We appreciate all of you very much!

I kind of wondered about the squirrels in the picture. But then ghostwriter reminded me that doggie heaven is where all the bad squirrels go. Looks like Joey will have lots of fun chasing those guys around! Go get 'em Joey! 

Ghostwriter here. Chester seems to be doing OK after the loss of his best friend. He's actually become a bit better behaved. We think it's because he no longer has to show off that he's top dog. We're going to take this opportunity to do a bit of training with him. (He's also going on a diet!) It's good that Dad is retired so Chester won't be left alone in the house very much at all after I go back to work. Yesterday while Dad was out, and I was up in my office, I heard Chester calling: woowooo, woowooo, over and over again while he laid on the couch. It sounded like he was calling for Joey to come home. It kind of makes you wonder …