This may prove to be a long story. Just deal with it.

Tomorrow is my Second Birthday. My parents have left off working with terms of weeks old, months old, and now it is that as of tomorrow, Scooter Sublime will be Two Years Old. Personally, I don’t care what that means in Human Years. I am not confused. I am not human.

When I was younger, I would never have said, “Just deal with it.” I didn’t know I could be curt. Cute was mostly what I was capable of before I was two. Now, according to experts, my human parents should expect behavior more like that of their human children in their late teens.  

Whoa . . .

Physically, I am fully grown (muscular, long nosed, heavy coated, and weighing in at nearly 30 pounds). Mentally? My parents and I approach my maturity differently (as they and their human teens did). I am predictable, according to those who study canine behavior: I have developed selective hearing. I hear what I want to hear – mostly that is the rustle of leaves created by a bunny rushing into the brush while my mom is saying, “Scooter, Sit.” I have conveniently forgotten commands I had down pat a month or two ago. I’m not nearly as interested in learning more. I mean, really, why are these things necessary? I am apt to exercise my mighty voice at inconvenient times, toward unfamiliar animate and inanimate things, and just in case an occasion warrants it. I’m not sure when my voice changed, but let me tell you, it is solo worthy.

Tomorrow I will be Two Years Old. Here’s a short, true story that will help you understand how honestly wonderful I am.

My human parents have a human daughter who has a penchant for hiding valuable things – like jewelry. Some time ago, maybe years ago now, that daughter realized that some very dear items were missing. No. She hadn’t given them to her daughter. Yes, she had taken some of her grandmother’s things to her house. She remembered the box where those things were. But they weren’t there. For months on end, she searched. I’ve heard the term, “high and low.” Stolen, she figured. Lost in one of her many moves, likely. 

Yesterday, in preparation for the possibility of her NY home being struck by Hurricane Henri, she sifted through stuff in a basement, tossing, sorting, lifting loads of things from what may be a flooded floor. Flashlights were located. Batteries were checked. Some simply needed to be discarded, bulbs burned out, switches stuck. 

That one, long and heavy, old and likely not to shed much light, with one short shot to the trash would disappear. Only, when she raised the thing to toss it, it rattled in a funny way. Batteries inside? She didn’t toss it. She unscrewed the battery compartment. She recovered a store of safely hidden jewels. 

Let me tell you, inside the most ordinary objects – like any two-year-old adolescent Goldendoodle, if you look, you can find treasures ready to be poured out. If you choose to pay attention.