Dog day at the water park

Last weekend, Wendell and I attended a canine swim day at Hawaiian Falls water park in The Colony. This is our story, in pictures:

Our first stop was the wave pool, where the big dogs were frolicking. But I've never really been the surfer-dude type, so the crashing waves weren't my style.

The kiddie pool -- now this is more like it. As you can see, Wendell was more eager to get wet than I was.

But I soon ventured in, albeit with an odd cross-legged gait.

Despite his freakishly long legs, Wendell wasn't quite tall enough to go on the Hawaiian Half Pipe. But he didn't let that dampen his enthusiasm.

Wendell actually tried to scale this contraption at one point. The lad is adventuresome -- you must give him that.

All this fun was starting to make me tired.

So as Wendell laid claim to a fountain-gushing rock ...

... and the big dogs, newly converted to canine Islam, chased their toys into the wave pool ...

... I set out with father on a trip around the lazy river. Ah, this is the life.


"Wendell," I barked upon my return, "you have to try this." Being a tad high-strung, Wendell wasn't quite as relaxed as I was. At one point, he leaped off his inner tube to the side. Father then put him in and let him dog paddle a bit, and Wendell continued the swimming motion even after father pulled him from the water. Unfortunately, mother was too busy laughing to snap a picture.

All in all, it was a most satisfying day.

Beating the heat

Hey, everybody, Wendell here again. It is HOT outside. I was born last August and didn't go outside much my first couple of months, so this is my first real taste of the Texas heat. When it's this hot, a pug's gotta do whatever he can to stay cool. Fortunately, I don't share my big brother's aversion to water. So I've been hittin' the hose pretty frequently.

Ahhhh .... so refreshing.

The humans won't let me come back inside before I dry off, so I try to help them out. Now you're probably wondering how Mugsy beats the heat. Well, he has his own favorite method:

Air conditioning.

Protest canceled

My mother informs me that the city was very polite and promptly removed the water-violation sign, so I have called off our march on City Hall. But please hang onto the money collected for bail; I still have that subpoena before Congress to contend with.

Mugsy victimized by unjust regime

It was a rude awakening, to say the least. As visions of Italian Milkbone Biscottis danced in my velvety, slumbering head, my mother threw open the door to the bedroom. "They cut off our water!" she exclaimed, the indignation heavy in her voice. "What?" I replied, yawning widely. "The city put a sign out in our yard and turned off our sprinkler water!" she said.

How could this be? I am a law-abiding pug. The city last spring enacted watering restrictions -- only once a week on trash day -- and I follow them to the letter. I would never dream of breaking the rules and over-watering. As anyone who has seen my back yard would attest, I have weeds that grow 15 inches high between their weekly mow. They certainly do not need any additional water.

And yet planted in my yard is a red sign detailing my alleged infraction at 6:42 this morning. This scarlet letter is meant to serve as a badge of shame -- it insists that it remain there for all the neighborhood to see, only to be removed by city personnel. It also bears the address of a house down the street.

Perplexed by this turn of events, I went to the garage to check the controls for my in-ground sprinklers, which once doubled as a fine security system to deal with snooping nuclear inspectors. I opened the panel and scrolled through the various days of the week. For each day, the system was set to "on." The result of a power surge, perhaps? I seem to recall the system resetting itself in this manner after the power went out a year or so ago. So I can only assume that my sprinklers were, indeed, on this morning. But as Allah well knows, it was certainly not my fault. Shouldn't the city place a phone call or issue a warning of some kind before it shuts off one's water? Is this any way to treat a law-abiding, tax-paying pug? Am I not a pillar of the community?!?!

This is simply not right. And so I am organizing a protest march. We will take our righteous rage over this injustice straight to City Hall. I will recruit the most raucous, unruly canines I can find. Chihuahuas, even. God willing, we will make the Code Enforcement Department wish it had never dared to defile my yard with its silly sign and its extortionistic fine. We will shout loud slogans, clash with police and make a spectacle the likes of which this sleepy suburb has never seen. And then, when the police haul out their firehoses to disperse the crowd, the hypocrisy of the city's corrupt regime shall be revealed for all to see.