I’m so excited that my person is finally letting me write a blog post! I get to write about my brother, too. He’s too scared to write about anything. See, this weekend, we got to celebrate our birthday. It was a busy time but so much fun.

My brother doesn’t even know what “Happy Birthday” means, but every time our person said it to him, he wagged his tail and howled. Silly boy. I, on the other hand, know full well that “Happy Birthday” means treats.

First, we got to chase our absolutely favorite thing in the world–the green dot! For those of you who don’t know, the green dot is sneakier than a squirrel, faster than a rabbit, and smellier than a deer. We haven’t caught it yet, but we sure keep it in line:

Here’s another video our person took because Yoda wasn’t being chasy enough in the first one;

We kicked off the weekend with a rare treat. Our person gave us CANNED DOG FOOD! We love it so much, but when we eat it, we are super focused and growl at each other a little because we’re so excited. So our person was a little preoccupied making sure we weren’t going to try to eat each others’ food that she didn’t get to snap a picture. Our person is sitting here as I’m writing and told me to tell you that if you saw a picture of us eating canned dog food, you would think it was gross. Our person says we look like snakes eating prey. Whatever that means.

Anyway, after eating our canned food (our person says it makes us stinky–hee hee!), we were lucky to enjoy perfect weather for our birthday weekend. I got to sneak around, and I rolled in several unique smells.

This is me being sneaky.

My brother is so boring. He just likes to sit under a tree and watch things. He always has to make sure our person is in his sights. How boring.

This is my brother being attentive and boring.

I like to hike around and see if I can lose my person!

This is me sneaking under the pine trees, where I’m pretty sure a family of skunks live. They haven’t sprayed me yet, and I don’t know why my person always yells at me when she catches me here.

This is me showing my brother the bestest, stinkiest place to roll.

But the very best part of the weekend was that my person left the gate off the stairs. Me and my brother aren’t supposed to run up and down stairs on account of us being short-legged corgis. Usually, we obey the rules, but if my person is upstairs for too long, I like to sneak up a few steps to be closer to her. But sometimes, if she’s upstairs sleeping, I sneak all the way up and hide in the hallway. She never even suspected that this weekend, I took a nap in the hallway right outside her room! Though come to think of it, I’m not sure where this picture came from…

We wrapped up the weekend with one final treat, and now that we’ve enjoyed all that, we’ll sleep well. Luckily, our person has to go to work tomorrow, so we get to have a nice long nap!

Until next time my person lets me write a blog post, take care and send me treats!

This is a picture of my brother, not me, because when I eat treats, I don’t sit still long enough to snap a picture!

I’ve written many times about my “fraidy-dog” Yoda, who is afraid of almost everything. In fact, for fun, I’ve compiled a list of his fears here. I’ll have to update that page with two new additions, one from last night.

The front cover, illustrated by the talented Yuming Coa.

His sister Leia loves to steal socks, but Yoda never does. Leia has so much fun running around the house with a sock in her mouth that I felt sorry for Yoda—he was missing out on the fun. Last night I tried to give him my other sock, but he just hurried away, hiding behind my chair. Since he was a small pup, he hasn’t really played with stuffed toys or anything soft—only rawhide bones or hard toys. If I try to play with him with a soft stuffed animal, he simply runs away. Sad!

It got me thinking that maybe he is missing out on some of the fun he could be having if he were less afraid. I thought about my own childhood. I definitely didn’t live life to the fullest; I was always cautious. My dad always repeated a saying to me: A coward dies many times, but a brave man dies only once. I understood what he said even as a kid, and I tried not to let fear of anything keep me down.

These musings inspired me to write a book in verse, an illustrated book that both children and adults would enjoy. It’s called Cora Cassidy and the Craven Corgi, and it will be available soon. I found an amazing illustrator at my alma mater, The College of William and Mary. Yuming Cao definitely captured the emotion behind each scene in the book.

The story takes us through a year in the life of Raven, a cowardly little corgi. Raven explains to her person Cora exactly what terrifies her about each part of the year, and Cora tries to dispel the corgi’s fears, looking with optimism at each time of year. Cora’s glass is always half full. For Raven, the glass is usually half empty (and full of something terrifying!).

My favorite line from the book is Cora’s: “Every month of the year keeps improving.” I love the optimism she shows when thinking about the world. Anyone who knows me knows how much I fear winter—I was trapped in a car during a snowstorm for thirteen hours once, and I’d much rather deal with a little heat and humidity than with crippling snow. I aspire, though, to look at the world the way Cora does.

Cora views each day as a gift, and she finds the enjoyable and the memorable in each time of year. Cora truly embodies my father’s advice, appreciating each day and all it has to offer.