June 27, 2008

When we got home from work yesterday I headed to the water bowl in the kitchen while Marianne sorted through the mail. She gasped, let out a little scream and dropped a big manila envelope and some papers on the floor. Madeleine and Mina came skidding into the kitchen, with Mina barking, "Snake! Snake! Snake!" Madeleine immediately lifted all four feet off the floor and barked, "Where? Where? Where?"

"Calm down!" Marianne scolded. "Mina, hush! Madeleine, relax, you can put your feet down. There's no snake. You're safe."

All three of us stared at her. I walked over and sniffed the papers. "What was all that about?" I asked. "I'm getting a faint whiff of dog, but nothing to cause alarm."

"Sorry," Marianne said as she picked up the stack of colored papers and stuffed them back into the envelope. "It's an envelope from CCI but I wasn't thinking when I opened it, so I was caught off-guard." Madeleine and Mina shrugged and left the kitchen.

I eyed the envelope suspiciously. "We get stuff from CCI all the time. Why is this different? Why are your eyes all teary?"

Marianne pulled a tissue out of the box and blew her nose. "This is your turn in packet," she explained. "It's the paperwork I need to fill out before you go to Advanced Training. I know you're going to CCI College in August, but I wasn't expecting the packet so soon. It caught me by surprise, that's all."

Oh, college. Scary!

"Well, what do we have to do?" I asked. "That looked like a lot of stuff. Do I have to take any tests like the high school kids? What's that one called, the SIT?"

Marianne laughed, "No, you do not have to take a standardized test like the SAT."

She pulled the papers back out and shuffled through them. "Well, there's general information about turn in, like the date and time. There's a checklist reminding me to send them your veterinarian records and to make sure all your shots are up to date. There's an RSVP form to let Stu know if we'll take the campus tour on Friday and attend the graduation on Saturday. Here's a form for Dr. Vicksman to fill out about your general health. And here's the form for your final puppy progress report."

She paused. "Oh, here's something you'll like. It's a reminder to send at least two photographs for the puppy raiser slide show that will be part of the graduation ceremony."

That got my attention all right. "Oooh, photos! Can we take some new ones? You might not have enough to choose from!" I worried.

Marianne snorted. "Since we have about 2,378 photos of you I don't think it will be a problem, but we can take some new ones, too." She reached over and rubbed my ears. "Jeez, it seems like just a few months ago that I filled out these papers for Hudson, and now it's your turn."

We looked at each other. "Well," Marianne said, "It's still eight weeks away, so let's not do today what we can put off until tomorrow. Let's go play fetch for a while."

Chow for now! Parker