I awoke to find Foxy standing directly over me. “Merciful heavens Foxy what are you doing?”  Foxy explained that he was starving. Those pizza crusts were great and all last night but I’m hungry said Foxy. About that time I began hearing what sounded like a chorus of dogs howling and barking. I ran to see what all the ruckus was about. I’ve never in my life heard such screeching, whining, barking and howling all at one time. Fourteen dogs were being absolutely obnoxious! Thank heavens for little Foxy. At least one of these newfound friends was normal. I ask Foxy why they were acting like this? Foxy said, “well Dallas, you see, these dogs are from a very exclusive neighborhood back home. They are used to being served the best of food as soon as they wake up. They are very pampered pooches.” Hum, pampered pooches, seriously? I thought they were headed for camp across the lake just like us. So, what’s the deal? Foxy said, “their camp is a very exclusive doggie camp across the lake.” Oh really! Tell me Foxy, what makes it so exclusive. Foxy began to describe their camp across the lake. They sleep in air-conditioned clubhouses on these huge down comforter pillows, eat the best foods; they are groomed daily and brushed each afternoon. They run and swim in a huge swimming pool that’s just for them. Their food is absolutely awesome and prepared by a world-class doggie chef daily. I looked at little Foxy who didn’t seem very pretentious at all. “So Foxy, tell me, do you live in that neighborhood?” Foxy explained that he was attending camp with a cousin and that he actually lived in the country. Thank heavens I ended up with little Foxy. Brother this is gonna be a long couple of weeks. Just wait until those whiners find out how things are on this side of the lake. Come on Foxy, let’s go break the news to your friends.

Dallas calls his cousins, Bear, Felix, Coco, Hank and Willow aside for a little meeting. Dallas explains the situation about the fabulous fourteen. Come to think of it from now on I’ll just call them the Fab 14. So here’s the deal Foxy. This side of the lake is about as far from their side of town as you can get. We forage for food each day. We never know what we’ll find but that’s part of the fun of coming to camp. We’re camping out after all and we have so much fun every year. We sleep under this old deserted house or sometimes up on the porch. I suppose the Fab 14 were so tired and hungry last night they forgot about their surroundings. Foxy replied that he thought our place was so cool and that it reminded him of his Grampa’s house. We’ll get along just fine little Foxy.

Here comes the Fab 14 looking like they were impoverished from their overnight sleep. “Where’s our breakfast, said Miss Poodle Puff?” Miss Poodle Puff is a tall standard white poodle complete with celadon blue ribbons on her ears. Foxy said, “What is celadon blue?” Dallas tells Foxy, “it’s just a fancy word for a light blue green color Foxy. “ Miss Poodle Puff’s ribbons are hanging a bit sideways after her bus trip and night under the old deserted house. She doesn’t look so snow white as when she left on the bus day before yesterday either. Good thing she doesn’t have a mirror! Dallas informs Miss Poodle Puff breakfast is not automatic and that a crew will soon go foraging for what they will be having for breakfast. Dallas tells Foxy that he can

go foraging with her, Hank and Felix. Normally only one dog goes for the food each meal but with 21 mouths to feed this year, it’s going to be a big job. I wanted little Foxy to experience the gathering process. Foxy was very happy to be chosen and is becoming a great team player. We found some plastic bags quickly and sneaked down by the food barracks. Yay, breakfast is over for all the campers so those trashcans are overflowing with yummy scraps. “Scraps?” yells Foxy. Yes, Foxy, we eat lots of scraps out here. Foxy says, “I don’t know how the Fab 14 will react to scraps?” Whelp, they can eat scraps or starve Dallas informs Foxy. Foxy tells Dallas he doesn’t mind at all, and that in fact he normally has lots of scraps at Grampa’s in the country. With 3 big bags full of scraps, they begin tugging those overloaded bags back to the old house. Foxy excitedly yells, “Breakfast is served!” Dallas has to stop Foxy quickly and remind that before the Fab 14 rush in and start gobbling the food there must be order. Never holler breakfast is served to a mob of 21 dogs. Never! Foxy is a little embarrassed but understands. By this time all the pups are smelling the scraps and are moving forward. Dallas steps up and informs the Fab 14 of what occurred last night and the lesson they learned about saying grace before meals.  They remembered and settled down.  Hank offers grace for their meal and Dallas assigns the pups their eating-places. In fact Dallas told them going forward this would be their assigned seating spots for every meal. Dallas, Hank and little Foxy began doling out the scraps in front of each pup. The wailing began. Not only wailing, but moaning, growling, yip, yip, yipping, barking and just about every dog can make plus more. Poodle Puff was absolutely mortified at the thought of eating scraps and several of her little buddies were as well. They began to leave their seats that Dallas had assigned without eating. Dallas asked them if they were going to eat and Miss Poodle Puff threw her head back and said NEVER! Dallas very calmly said, “Well, that’s fine.”

Miss Poodle Puff and her buddies marched off towards a group of trees to pout. Foxy asked Dallas what they would do with the food that was rejected. Dallas told her it would be distributed to all the other pups. They never kept left over food because that attracted all sorts of undesirable critters. Mainly the coyotes and hogs. Foxy gulped really big and said to Dallas, “coyotes and hogs?” Oh yes said Dallas. You might ask my cousins about that today. Come on now we have work to do. The camp set up is way behind on our schedule because of that crazy bus driver.