Don’t know if we have mentioned it before, modest creatures that we are, but we are intelligent and knowledgeable.  We stick to Mom and over her shoulder read what she 

reads .  We have evolved into sentient beings.  That’s our word of the day (WOD) – sentient.  We love the sound of it and are determined to use it. So it’s Sentient Snuggles, who truly senses Mom’s moods and intentions (super-intelligent as in A clutch of pooches), and Zentient Zaza who perceptively zzzznores the day away.

It’s quite remarkable, Zentient Zaza’s zzzzz: last night, on the coldest night here, we were all snuggled under quilts, Snuggles in the crook of Mom’s arm, and Zaza curled up at her feet.  Suddenly, Mom started.  “Earthquake!” she yelled.  Big Sis, tapping away at her laptop to meet work deadlines, looked up:  “What earthquake?” Mom described the bed vibrating and a low rumble in her ear through her pillow. Big Sis scoffed.  Mom put her head down, only to sit up and start the entire conversation all over again.  This happened at least thrice.  By now, we were impatient – our warm beds had been upset.   Finally, enlightenment dawned and Mom realised that a deep rumbling earthquake over 45 seconds would have pulled the building down!   The next 10 seconds were spent wondering which flat below ours was listening to such loud music that booms were reverberating through Mom’s pillow.  Even stupider.  It was only after our sleep and our beds were well and truly mussed up that Mom figured out the source of the rumble and vibration – Zentient Zaza.  Her snores had travelled from the foot of the bed to its head.  That’s Zuperdog Zentient Zaza – others cause ripples, she causes rumbles.

Anyway, back to where we began from.  Our reading.  Of late, Mom has been chewing the pages (not like we chew, but chewing) of a play called The Tempest by the Bard, a human called Shakespeare.  We had heard of him earlier (Pooch once again in a pickle) but now we know him better.  All of sudden, Mom has discovered our resemblance to some fellows called Caliban and Miranda.  Apparently, Snuggles smells like a dead fish, maybe because our dog food these days has salmon in it or maybe that’s just the way the dirt-collector is – smelly and grimy and defiantly wild – so Sentient Snuggles is the Caliban of the house.  And Zentient Zaza is the dainty, tippy-toe Miranda – when she’s not causing tremorzzz.  We had barely got used to our real names (we still forget them and carry on with what we are doing even if our Folks go hoarse calling them out), when we have been re-christened. Those who are not as intelligent and widely read as we are, go order a copy of The Tempest to truly make sense of this.

It will take us some time to figure out if we are being complimented or not, but in the meantime, we can’t have a long-gone writer, or even Mom (least of all Mom) scripting our lives for us.  So, we do our own thing.  In our version Miranda  goes for poor cowering Caliban time and again although we found out that actually, it was the other way round, and poor Caliban just tried attacking Miranda once in his life, not five times a day.  For proof, check out the picture of Me Tarzan, You Jane in Have you heard these?  We are now ready and waiting to script our own tale of the new age Miranda.

So much for sentience and Shakespeare.  We end with the third ‘s’ of this phase in our life – science.  We are logical creatures with a nose for exploration and solutions, trying to understand how a ball can squirt liquid in your eye and make you curl your tongue when it explodes in your mouth.  We are sure you remember our scientific deduction of the last time we met that diapers, as little as Mom likes them, are a badge of maturity in humans (A clutch of pooches).  When we were forced wear them, Mom used to snatch every opportunity to take them off and keep us bare or on cloth.  This would have to coincide with our walk times.  Once Mom, old and forgetful that she is getting (more on that later), forgot.  So one of us wandered out to do our thing.

One Of Us Who Wandered Out had a full bladder that was ready to burst like a bombard ready to pour by the pailfuls (The Tempest  – again!) And it did.  At least One Of Us Who Wandered Out was sure it did.  When she (no names 😬) turned around to sniff, as we usually do, the mud was dry.  A faint smell was coming from somewhere but she couldn’t tell from where.  Seeing One of Us going around in circles trying to locate the said pailful, the Other of Us rushed to sniff.  We were going around in circles, our noses to the ground and to each other’s behinds, to solve the mystery of the disappearing pailful when we heard a crow of laughter.  It was Mom, who by now had realised her goof up.  We are still miffed.  It was her goof up and we got laughed at.  Our noses for exploration and solutions are still searching though we suspect the diaper that Mom removed from One Of Us Who Wandered Out was looking heavier and yellower than usual.  But till we find out for sure, we cannot make a categorical statement about  pailfuls from the bladder that vanish leaving the barest smell behind.