New HULA Member: Kelsey Ann

I, Kelsey Ann, respectfully submit my application for the HULA; I am also submitting on behalf of my fur-siblings, Sky and Canyon. We believe that we have met all of the requirements as follows:

1. Demonstrating Disruptive Behavior:
Canyon and Sky love to play together. Sometimes their playing gets out of hand. The noise generated has been known to wake the toddling biped from time to time.
Canyon tries to play with me and I have to tell him to back off. He just doesn't listen and I end up having to bark louder. He barks back and mom and dad get mad because they can't hear the TV.

2. Causing Humans to Freak Out for No Reason:
Several years ago, before mom and dad got Sky and long before Canyon, I found an ant-trap. I thought it tasted pretty good. Mom and dad got pretty worried and they made me drink ipicac solution. Then I had to sit on the porch until I threw up. Well, I got bored and found a baby rabbit nest to play with. They sure were freaked out that night.
On another occasion, after we moved and got Sky, they let Sky and I out into the dog run. Low and behold - we found a baby possum. We just wanted to play with it, but dad had to chase us back into the house and then try to rescue the baby possum.
One final story to demonstrate this... Last winter, the bipeds went on vacation to Florida. They left us home and a dog-sitter stopped by a few times a day to check on us. Canyon, still being a puppy, and having the typical lab seperation anxiety (see "Destroy Something" for more info on how we learned about this) had to be kept in his crate during the whole week except when the sitter was here. Well, Canyon managed to get a bean bag chair that was at least 3 feet from his crate, pull it through the bars of his crate and then shred it. That sitter sure was upset when she got here. She didn't know what to do. I never was so amused in my life as I was then while watching her freak out for no reason.

3. Destroy Something:
This past spring, the bipeds took a vacation to New England. After coming home, they had a bag containing some travel books. This bag stayed in the bedroom for about two months and didn't get fully unpacked. I was so tired of looking at it, so last week I tried to help them out. Unfortunately, I don't have opposable thumbs so I had to take the books out of the bag with my teeth. Well, the books didn't all survive this procedure. I guess that's what the AAA membership is for. They can go get more of those things without too much trouble. Now, where's that AAA card - I don't like when they go away without us and leave the sitter to come in three times a day to take care of us.
Sky had has his run ins with destroying things too. Two particular items that come to mind are the squeeky bee with no wings and the squeeky quail with only half of its stuffing and no squeeker. These two items were some of his later squeekies. His earliest ones didn't survive for more than a few hours until the fuzz, stuffing and squeeker were seperated into three neat piles.
I've already mentioned Canyon's playtime with the bean bag chair, but I promised to tell you how it came to be learned that Canyon was suffered from the typical lab seperation anxiety and is unable to be trusted out of his crate when no one's home. Prior to the Florida vacation, the bipeds tried to see if they would be able to allow Canyon the freedom to be out of his crate. They penned him in the office for a day. When they came home, they learned that Canyon had torn up a few books, a notepad which contained the user IDs and passwords for all of mom's accounts with various creditors and utilities, and a remote control. He also got into several other items that weren't quite as important.

4. Human Behavior Modification:
The one item that most details this would be the evolution of our potty breaks. When it was just me, they had a tie-out which was fastened to the grill. Once we had Sky, we progressed to tie-outs attached to the laundry pole. This wasn't enough to hold Sky, so later we went to modified tie-outs that had stronger clasps. By the time the tie-outs were 86ed, Sky would wear a harness when he went out. The harness was attached to his collar with a piece of chain. The chain was attached to the tie-out. And Sky was wearing a shock collar. All of this, just to be sure that Sky wouldn't get away. That got to be too much trouble, so we started going out on leashes only. Then we got Canyon. That resulted in a 6-foot chain link fence around a 16x20 foot area of the yard.

5. Humans Dress You Up:
About a month before last Christmas, the bipeds put me in my stupid elf costume (again), Canyon in a Santa hat, and Sky had reindeer antlers. We had to sit in front of the Christmas tree with the toddling biped for about 45 minutes while mom and dad took picture after picture. It took forever to get three dogs and an 18-month old human child to sit still long enough to get a picture.

6. Love of Kleenex:
I can say that Sky doesn't like Kleenex, but Canyon and I love it. I go after the Kleenex in the bedroom trash can almost daily. Canyon will pull the Kleenex out of the bathroom trash any chance he gets. No matter how mad mom and dad get, we still do it every day.

Well, Meeshka, I'm sure you can see that we meet the qualifications of HULA quite well. I hope that you will consider me for membership. Oh and don't forget about my fur-siblings, you can consider them if you want.

Woo-woo!
Kelsey Ann

(The elf costume! MY EYES, MY EYES the horror!!!!! - Meeshka)