“. . . when thou no more was good, when that goldendoodle glory departed thee; thou resembl’st a teenage boy with a deep voice you love exercising quite inappropriately. You bark out of turn. “Thou resembl’st now a pain in the behind,” I said.

This past Sunday morning, Scooter discovered a gift left for him at our apartment door.

Let’s hand it to the Scots. Scooter couldn’t care less. Scooter Sublime of Heron’s Key has one word for snow: FUN!

Then Scooter Sublime stops. Scooter stops at one particular slender stalk of wild grass, one in a patch of hundreds of others like it. He’s paying no attention to anything around him now. Scooter is meeting a blade of grass.

While modern universities encourage wild dreams and creative unfocus, I’m of the old school — enforced discipline, sharp focus on fundamentals.

Imagine then, the afternoon of December 24, 2020, when for the first time, my human Mom and I met a particular Labrador retriever; a shy, but beautifully black-coated, stately standing, well-behaved dog (But, that’s a Labrador for you).

“Scooter, read this. It’s about you.”

Off the leash he was! In the woods he ran! Crazy with joy he was as he familiarized himself with the campsite bank, some fifty or so feet above the Hood Canal shore.

It was a cold nose touching mine that woke me, a small black nose at the tip of a fluffy, four-footed boy whose wide black eyes watched for mine to open.

For some good reason, in the dream that woke me, my job was to give Scooter Sublime away

Let’s get serious — today is a special day for Scooter Sublime

SEE SCOOTER, leash flying free behind him, running wild in Blake Island’s massive meadow, the island with a strict “dogs on leash and leash attached to human hand” rule.

“Whew . . . Scooter is fine”

However, to the point. Today I joined my human parents aboard our boat, PineAweigh, for a brief cruise into Dyes Inlet . . .

. . . the book and my glasses were somewhere on my chest or on the floor, and my sleep was being disturbed by a noise. A familiar noise.

If you’ve read the previous sixteen “Puppy” blogs, you know that Scooter understands at least 23 words. He knows what a command is. He’s done well, this 70% fully grown boy bearing all body parts and a puppy coat. Scooter’s development and training has advanced, swimmingly. But, on the particular day I strive to describe, it was as if a spell of forgetfulness had fallen.

But, back to our pup’s willingness to bite. People. He shouldn’t. But, he has. Me. This is a mistake and we mean for it to be corrected.

Even without his permission, I mean to tell you that Scooter Sublime made a major mistake on April 17th . . .