Maxidad,

In that last picture, it looks like Linda is getting a good laugh too.  What a guy Bernie is!  I'm looking forward to meeting him.

I will ask you to help me keep Cemil safe from being bodyslammed.  He doesn't have the 4-legged stability that Linda does.

Have a safe trip up here.

Mary

Wow - you sure he's not a Bernie bid Laden super hero dog from another planet??? I was going to say poor Linda but no, not really…she looks like she's enjoying it as much as he is.   Everyone going to the pawty better watch out for the Super hero dog cause here he comes!

labradorim said:

Have you tried him on catching a frisbee yet? 

 

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Yes we have.  He completely understands the concept of "fetch," and loves playing it with his toys at home.  But frisbees are a whole different story.  He goes nuts for those things.  Throw a frisbee and Bernie will take off after it like a rocket.  Once it lands, he'll ferociously pounce on it, pick it up, and give it a good hard shake (presumably to make sure it's dead).  Problem is, he doesn't bring it back.  He's so incredibly proud of himself for having caught it that he prances around the dog park with it in his mouth, showing it to every other person and dog in the area so they can appreciate and admire his greatness and prowess as a mighty frisbee hunter.  If someone isn't suitably impressed, he'll poke them in the leg with the frisbee and/or shake it again until he gets the appropriate reaction.  And if he's really, really lucky, some other dog might chase him around trying to get the frisbee, which makes him even greater because now he has something that somebody else wants (in case you haven't figured it out already, Bernie is one of those dogs who is incredibly proud of himself most of the time).  After all that's done, he likes to drop the frisbee and pounce on it so he can re-live his incredible victory all over again.

So in short, the answer is yes, Bernie loves frisbees, although I doubt he'll ever want to bring one back after it's thrown.

OMG!! That's it! I am done!! I am in love with Bernie!!!  He seems to be the most hilarious puppy in the world!!  I think he is born with superstar genes.  Thank's for the laugh! I want to read more about Bernie/Linda's stories!

Does Bernie Bin Laden offer puppy classes? I think Zuzu must be attending - maybe it's online night school or something?  She has mastered the art of the body slam as a method of slowing down or stopping... and yesterday we were playing with a bouncing ball and she was making me laugh so hard because all I could think about was Bernie!  Everytime the ball went down, she went up.  Then just as it was bouncing back up she was heading down.  It was hillarious.  But I have no idea how you ever managed to get pictures of Bernie doing that!  Holly just sits on her chair with a worried look on her face - I think Holly thinks Zuzu is always just about to hurt herself.  Or maybe Holly is secretly wishing....

Something terrible is approaching Mill Valley…

We drove to Carmel from Orange County yesterday.  We always stop at the San Buenaventura state beach in Ventura along the way, since their “Dogs must be on leash” rule is seldom enforced.  It gives the dogs a change to stretch their legs, and give Bernie a chance to annoy Linda, which he did. 

We get there by late morning, so we usually go to the nearby In-N-Out burger for some lunch.  Bernie and Linda both scored cheeseburgers!

When we arrived in Carmel, our first stop was the off-leash beach, where we figured Bernie could blow off some steam.  Carmel will never be the same.  I’d love to show some pictures, but we were too busy chasing the demented little nitwit all over the beach, since he decided to lose his mind the moment his paws hit the sand.  In the space of five minutes, the following things happened:

1.  He assaulted a pair of Ugg boots someone left on the sand, grabbing one of them and running off with it.  We were able to recover it with a minimum of damage and slobber marks.  However, Diane says the jury is still out on whether or not killing an Ugg boot is a crime or a service to society in general.
2. He attempted to steal a Frisbee from a family who was throwing one back and forth.  Fortunately, we shouted and warned them they were being stalked by a convicted Frisbee thief.
3. Bernie then barreled through a sandcastle fort some kids were building, grabbed one of their plastic shovels, and tore off down the beach with it.  He was really proud of himself, so it took a while longer to get this one back.  I had to play with Linda and let him see her having fun, which annoyed him enough to make him drop it in favor of coming over and biting her.
4. After that, he saw a pair of shoes and socks next to a beach towel.  He rocketed over and grabbed the sock, which he then shook violently, ran down to the shoreline with it and tossed it into the air, and then dropped it on wet sand.  The sock’s owner was a teenage kid who thought Bernie’s antics were funny, although I bet that attitude changed after he put his wet sandy sock back on.

 Mr. Bin Laden was fairly tired after that, so he behaved reasonably well for the rest of the day.

 We took him to the beach again first thing this morning, where he spent most of his time stealing Linda’s stick.  She used to be able to escape him by going into the water, but he now knows how to swim, so there’s nowhere safe.  He chases her in these days and steals the stick right out of her mouth.

Both dogs were filthy and covered with sand, so we took them to the dog-washing area at our hotel (the amazingly dog-friendly Cypress Inn), where we hosed them down.  Bernie always whines and carries on like this is the worst torture we could ever inflict on him, in spite of the fact he loves how clean he is afterward.  I even gave him a good belly rubdown with the towel, which he thanked me for by ripping a loud stinky fart right in my face as I dried him.  Thanks, buddy.

 After Bernie and Linda had breakfast and a quick nap while Di and I got ready, we went walking around town.  We stopped by a shop with this fountain in front of it, where Linda jumped up on the fountain’s edge for no adequately explained reason.  Bernie contented himself with trying to drink half the water out of it.

Another of our stops was Aslan’s Garden, a very nice outdoor garden shop across the street from the hotel.  Bernie immediately endeared himself to the staff by taking a horrendous dump right in front of the cash register, requiring two poo bags and a bucket of water to wash away.  Lucky for us (and them), it’s an open-air shop, so most of the toxic fumes eventually dispersed.  The girl who was working there was really nice and said it was no big deal, but I think she was kinda dazed from the stink.  I purchased a few decorations we really didn’t need just because I felt so bad about it. 

Carmel is full of hidden courtyards and plazas, so we visited a bunch of them.  Here’s Bernie in a rare well-behaved moment, resting on a bench.

After buying him a new collar at Diggety Dog, Carmel’s dog shop (where he managed to inhale several dog biscuits that weren’t adequately guarded), we went across the street to the Carmel Plaza.  There’s a spot there called the “Fountain of Woof,” which is a waterfall and pool built exclusively for watering thirsty dogs (Carmel is the most dog-friendly place we’ve ever been).  Bernie became fascinated with a bit of pipe sticking out of the cement at the bottom of the fountain, and tried his best to swat it out.  When that didn’t work, he stuck his entire head into the water and tried biting it and pulling it up. 

He then climbed the fountain, bit the stone dog head at the top, and drank half a gallon of water from the spout before jumping down.  We took a picture next to the fountain after that, and you can see all the water he splashed out in his attempts to get that pipe.

I think his new camouflage collar made him think he’s a commando, because when we were out to dinner tonight at a dog-friendly restaurant called “The Forge in the Forest,” he staged a lightning-like raid on my wife’s plate.  It was like watching one of those nature shows where a snake strikes – one minute the snake’s prey is sitting there, and the next it’s simply gone.  You don’t even see the actual strike because it happens so fast.  That’s what happened with Bernie the Assault Dog.  One second he was laying down, then the next there was a blurred explosion of movement, several French fries vanished from Diane’s plate, and Bernie dropped back to the ground with a self-satisfied look on his face and a couple of fry tips sticking out of his mouth. 

For her part, Linda just seems vaguely baffled by her idiot brother's antics.  I don't blame her – he’s horrible.  For my part, I wholeheartedly apologize in advance to the entire population of Mill Valley for what’s going to be inflicted on them tomorrow.