Author: Leslie (Page 2 of 6)

There are lots of stories written about dogs. My mother has a whole stack of them.

I told her if she tried writing stories FOR dogs, I would give her some tips. I started with just a few.

Happy stories

First, dogs only like happy stories.

Like this:

We got in the car and went to the dog park. Someone was handing out free biscuits.

Or this:

The new dog food was stinky, meaty, and raw. And there was more of it.

Smelly stories

Write stories dogs like to smell.

Like a story about camping. Add the bottom of hiking boots, rotting leaves, and maybe a lizard or two. You could also add something about a cat.

Stories with some action

Dogs like stories with some action. Like chasing tennis balls, running after cars, or pouncing on a mouse.

Nothing about insects, shopping, or missing relatives.

Happy endings

The ending has to be happy too.

Something like ‘They lived happily ever after’ is too vague for a dog. It would be better to write ‘The lost puppies found homes.’

Finally, never write The End. Dogs will think you’re talking about their tail.

Written by the Crafty Canine

I like to hide things. Some things actually belong to me, like my old tennis balls and rawhide bones. But most do not, like my mother’s fuzzy socks, the kitchen towel, or toothpaste.

So just for fun, I made up a few hiding games.

The Hide Once game

This is a game I play most often. For example, the other day I was sniffing around my mother’s closet. It always has lots of smells and something good to hide. Once I took an old running shoe. Then I hid it under the couch. That’s one of my regular hiding places. My mother always looks there first, so she found it.

I also took my dog brush and hid it in the laundry basket. I hate that thing.

The Hide Again game

This is my favorite hiding game. I hide the same thing in different spots. Like one of the bones I bury in the backyard. I can usually find it again by sniffing around. Then I bury the bone again somewhere else. This can go on for a while. I never get bored.

The Not Finished Hiding game

Sometimes I get distracted in the middle of hiding something. One time I dragged a small branch in from the backyard. I started to hide it in my mother’s closet, but then I smelled dinner. End of that game. I left the branch sticking out of the closet.

The Found Again game

There are some things I never want to hide. For example, my keyboard, my food bowl, and a book my mother gave me called Hiding Games for Dogs. It had a game called Found Again, which had hints about how to find things I hid but never found again.

Like my favorite old tennis ball. I thought I hid it under my bed, but it disappeared.

Hint: Look in the trash can.

I couldn’t write any stories for months. Here’s what happened, and I’m not kidding.

A ghost was hiding in my keyboard.

The first thing that happened was when I typed an A. It came out as an L. Nothing too unusual, I miss keys all the time. Except these keys aren’t even close to each other on my keyboard.

Then I typed a C. It was upside down, sort of like a frown.

I knew my mother wouldn’t play that kind of trick on me. It had to be the ghost in my keyboard.

I tried typing again. I typed a Q and waited. This time nothing happened. Then I looked up. The Q was hanging on the wall in front of me. Maybe the ghost was having fun, but I wasn’t.

I didn’t type any stories after that.

Keys to confuse the ghost

My mother said she was going to take out all the keys and put in new ones. She thought that might confuse the ghost and it would leave.

And it did. I tried typing again with the new keys and nothing scary happened. It was a good thing because I’m a busy dog. I have stories to write.

Just press Delete

I think my next story will be about how to get rid of a ghost who’s hiding in a keyboard. Turns out it’s not that hard.

Just press Delete.

Arthur, the Saint Bernard who delivered books to the Dog Library, thought it was time to have a party. Lately some of the dogs were so busy sniffing my stories that they forgot to take a nap. They needed a distraction.

Margaret the Dog Librarian agreed. She needed a break from organizing all the stories.

Party food and decorations

My mother brought food to the party. Cheese puffs with extra cheese, peanut butter cookies made with chicken gravy, and banana cake with salmon frosting.

She also helped decorate the room with balloons and party hats. The littlest dogs got a small scarf instead of a hat.

The Paw Print game

Arthur and Margaret planned the party game. It was called the Paw Print game. Dogs marked the stories they liked best with two paw prints. If they didn’t understand a story by smelling it, they added only one paw print.

Margaret made up one rule. The dogs couldn’t put their paw prints on just any story. They had to do a thorough smell test first.  She also made Stanley the Mischief Dog promise to behave himself and leave his paws out of it.

There were three bowls the dogs could dip their paws into before marking a story. One bowl was full of slimy mud. And my mother brought red and blue paint for the other two bowls.

Dogs who marked the most stories got a prize. First place was a basket full of rubber balls and stuffed toys. Second place was a bandanna made of old smelly socks. Third place was a box of beef strip bookmarks. They didn’t last very long.

When the game was over, Margaret made the dogs wash their paws off in soapy water. But it was too late. There was mud and paint all over the library floor. Some paint even got on the walls. Margaret guessed it was from Stanley.

I’m not one of those dogs who only knows the words I’m supposed to know. Like sit, stay, no, and bath. If that was it, my stories might sound like this:

Sit, no, stay, no, bath, stay, no, no.

Pretty silly.

But I know a lot of people words. My mother taught them to me. So, when I’m writing and forget a word, I press the Woof key on my keyboard.

It’s not like my keyboard’s Story button. The Woof key gives me words, not story ideas.

Something with wheels

For example, one day I couldn’t remember the word ‘roller skates’. I needed it for one of my neighborhood stories.

So, I wrote this: ‘The boy next door raced down the street in his something with wheels.’

I pressed the Woof key. It came up with the word ‘car’. Possibly, but not what I had in mind. So I pressed the key again. This time, I got the word ‘wagon’. Nope. Then the word ‘stroller’.

What? Racing in a stroller? The Woof key isn’t always reliable.

I went back to writing my story and used the word ‘bicycle’. It sounded like this:

‘The boy next door raced down the street in his bicycle.’

Just right.

Something with numbers

Another time I couldn’t remember the word ‘calculator’. It’s not like it comes up every day. But I was writing another neighborhood story. This one was about the stupid cat next door. He wanted to know how many lives he had.

My story started out like this: ‘The cat next door doesn’t know how to count, so he uses something with numbers.’

I pressed the Woof key. It came up with the word ‘ruler’. No, that wouldn’t work. Then the word ‘math’. Maybe. Finally, the word ‘clock’. But that wasn’t right either.

I was about to give up and start a different story. But then I thought, who knows, maybe cats do use clocks to count.