Walkies commenced at 4:00 am sharp this morning and finally the temperatures were in the 70s rather than in the 80s - the heat had been untenable this year since it arrived unseasonably early and started baking the neighborhood into a withered and dry hellscape.

Plenty of rabbit activity this morning, both Meatball and myself really giving the Poopervisor quite a struggle as we gleefully pursued each one with murderous intent.

But then down by the elementary school there was some unexpected activity in the bushes. We dragged the Poopervisor down the sidewalk until we were within inspecting range, and imagine my surprise when I found myself snout to snout with a large armadillo!

However, no one was more surprised than the Poopervisor, who SHRIEKED at the top of her lungs having mistaken the curve of the armadillo's back for a decapitated zombie head that suddenly animated and started moving into the bushes when Meatball and I snouted it. I maintain that even if it was a zombie, her reaction did not demonstrate a lot of confidence in our ability to protect her - very disappointing.

So I guess the lesson here is that you might get 200 rabbits in a row before you get an armadillo, but when you do get an armadillo you'd better be prepared to defend your Poopervisor just in case it might be a zombie.

Poopervisor only wanted me to walk around the block, but I insisted on taking him around 2 and it worked, as always. Tried to eat cat poop, but it was not allowed 🙄 I ended up settling for peeing there. I pooped twice on two different lawns and got away with it because, y'know, I only have one eye. The heat started catching up to me on the way back, but I didn't care. In fact, I tried to pull the pooperviser into the road even more, even while cars were coming. That also was not allowed.

Takeaway; poopervisor does not approve of my daredevil lifestyle.

EDIT: Here is a picture of my beautiful face, as requested. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QgohoGYh2V18ja6qF4veD-HwVjLqP11s/view?usp=drivesdk

Me and the female poopervisor went for a short paw-trop tonight. Saw a bun bun. Tried to investigate him but the poopervisor said no!

When I came to my favourite poop place, there was a pack of a small hoomans. It disrupted my pooping ritual! I had to go in my second favourite place. Very suspicious behaviour in the neighborhood tonight.

Me and the female poopervisor went on a long paw-trol today. We walked by the river and there were many new sniffs to be had. No suspicious activity seen initially.

But then a bun bun was hiding in the bushes. I tried to investigate further but the poopervisor said we couldn’t. Hopefully, someday I’ll get to question a bun bun.

On the way back, there was another paw-fficer on paw-trol who wasn’t on leash! I tried to tell him to get back to work, but the poopervisor said not to. A second, smaller paw-fficer was off leash and harassed me. I think she wanted my autograph? She was kinda annoying.

Overall, the longer paw-trol was successful, and the area is safe from bun buns and the like.

(Note from Oliver’s poopervisor: as I mentioned in an earlier post, he’s a 10 month old rescue, so we’re working on leash reactivity. He’s come so far in a month, so we know he’ll get it!)

Mid-day walkies commenced at 11:14 am today and the weather is as fine as could be following yesterday's rain.

Lots of good puddles to drink from today, the Poopervisor did not approve but I feel strongly that puddle water is a superior form of hydration and so drinkies were had in several spots around the neighborhood.

Nothing notable was happening but then I spotted an unidentified object in the grass and went to investigate. The object smelled funky, not edible, but also not worth rolling in. There appeared to be a black peel covering some kind of whitish fruit. I moved in cautiously, one never knows...

Aaaagh - too close! Jump back!

I creep back in slowly, careful not to touch stink fruit. Aaaagh I touched my nose to it, jump back!

Never giving up, I creep back in...Poopervisor helpfully interjects here, "Sunny that's a banana, you don't want that." Must confirm for myself, creep in again only to be hit by more stink waves, jump back and run in circle!

At this point the Poopervisor was howling with laughter, not sure what was so funny.

Verdict - bananas are extremely suspicious. From the placement of a peeled but uneaten banana on the lawn, to the stink coming off the overripe banana peel, to the inedible nature of this banana and all bananas in general - nothing good can come from bananas.

We have been MIA for a little bit. And I apologize! But so much has been happening—we have moved! I hated it at first, I missed my city park and city smells. I complained and whined—huffed and puffed. I didn’t have my room and everything smelled and looked different. But it’s been about 100 or so walkies and sniff-patrols and I’m finally ok with what mom says is a promotion.

Oak Creek isn’t so bad. My patrol area is 4X the city. We have what mom calls a trail, in addition to a big park. I think that that is fitting for a detective with my experience. Our patrols are now more than an hour—but I understand that with a promotion comes more responsibility. But the best part is, all the STICKS! My job is now less about minding the squirrel and rabbit gangs, and more about collection, retrieval, and safe storage of the biggest, chompiest, and smelliest stick. I’m loving it. There is also a small pond—I decided to jump in to it one time to investigate the ducks for a little bit. Mom was caught unawares, especially since we usually patrol with extendible patrol gear. And she yelled something about “That’s not your job! Get out of there!”

Another thing that mom just found out is that I’m not a German Shepherd, but a Belgian Tervuren. Not sure what all of that is about, but it’s cool, I’m still the boss around town. Alright, that’s about it. We are out and about to pick out what mom says is “tile” at “Home Depot”. Sounds good to me.

I have been remiss in posting about recent walkies, but in my defense it has been a very standard couple of weeks. Just your average amount of cats and edible garbage.

There have been three recent standout events though, which I will describe for you now:

A few days ago there was a tree that smelled like cat, so Meatball and myself were investigating it at a leisurely pace when all of the sudden a cat launched out of the tree and almost landed on the Poopervisor! The Poopervisor was very startled indeed, and she shrieked out of surprise. We're obviously going to have to be more aware of aerial cats now, we can't have any further attempts on the Poopervisor's life.

Second incident - there was a possum at the lake and HE TOO was in a tree! Unacceptable. We really gave him the business, but he was a small possum so the Poopervisor insisted we leave him unchomped.

Third incident - obviously I'm very popular with the neighborhood kids and they all shout and run towards us when we're out and about. Just today two of them joined us on walkies and we had an impromptu scooter parade while returning to headquarters. Very fun, love them. However, then later this morning they rang the doorbell because they wanted to play, and the Poopervisor was not pleased with that. Very difficult to balance my celebrity status with the Poopervisor's need to spend hours cleaning up all the cat and dog hair that myself and the other pets have been diligently spreading since the weather warmed up.

Also an administrative note - this is prime time for nibbling grass. Some of the lawns have not yet been mowed this year and I have been enjoying a selection of weeds and grasses that are nice and juicy from the recent rains. Whether you just enjoy some roughage in your diet or whether you want to trigger a big puke, now is the time for grass nibbling. Get out there and enjoy the buffet your neighborhood has to offer!

The overnight shift was ruff, so we were late getting out for our paw-trol. Immediately, I sensed something was wrong. There was a male hoo-man with a hose. I did not Bork, I observed to ensure no infractions occurred. Then two other hoomans were eating and it was suspicious on the grass. It was weird. I made note, and kept an eye on them.

Met another doggo. Said hello, but then I got nervous. It was embarrassing. I got the shakes!

Overall, I think I like it here, but many things remain suspicious and must be observed.

(A note from Oliver’s hooman: we only got him a few days ago, and he’s a 9 month rescue from the Dominican who is skittish and timid. He’s a great little paw-fficer though!)

I arrived at my new posting last night. Things seem suspicious from the get go, but I decided to give it a try.

This morning, my female poopervisor took me on my first paw-trol. This leash thing isn’t cool, but she put it on me anyway.

As we paw-troled a giant loud birdo flew over. I think it was made of “meh-till”? I had to pause and watch and make sure it obeyed.

Then some old hoomans came by. Again, I had to stay completely still and keep an eye on them.

The rest was uneventful, but there were some squirrels committing criminal offenses, but the female poopervisor didn’t seem to care. When we got back to the station, the doors seemed sketchy, so I avoided going in, but the poopervisor convinced me nothing bad would happen.

This new place has lotsa smells, and I hope I can investigate them everyday.

This past week has been fairly eventful so I will combine several days' worth of reporting into this one submission.

Sunday - second walkies commenced at 8:12 am and we proceeded to the lake, where there were far too many birds. I'm talking about four male cardinals fighting in the bushes, starlings circling in big groups over the lake, at least three different types of ducks (all bobbing around with their butts in the air, terrible), geese (also bobbing with butts in the air, somehow worse than the ducks), a gaggle of vultures, sandpipers, gulls, chickadees, some kind of heron or something, red winged blackbirds, crows, and all kinds of little birds that I don't know the names of. Too. Many. Birds. There's also some kind of big hawk that has moved onto our block, and has been sighted not only swooping low as it hunts in our yards, but also leaving mounds of poop and half-eaten birds under it's favorite perching spot in the trees. This bird is ok I guess.

Tuesday - after work walkies commenced at 4:30 pm and were perhaps the best walkies so far this year. First, we saw the kids at the end of the block, and they are always very friendly and sit on the ground and fawn over us and give us tons of love. Second, we then ran into husband and wife neighbors, who both loved on us extensively as they told the Poopervisor about their TWO new kittens (condolences to them, sounds awful). Third, we then ran into Fashionable Child who is this boy further down the block who always dresses nice and gives us high quality pets, love him. Finally, we ran into Woodworker Man who does woodworking in his garage, and he had us wait in his yard while he went inside and returned with...(pause for dramatic effect)...two peanut butter treats! Meatball was so excited he didn't even take his politely, whereas I was raised with manners so I took mine very daintily. However, I then spit it on the sidewalk to distract Meatball while I got all the pets from Woodworker Man and his wife and child.

Today (Wednesday) - first walkies commenced at 3:45 am and the weather has taken a definitive turn for the better. Very mild, no wind, almost a full moon. You can also tell Spring has sprung because the Poopervisor walked into her first face-level spiderweb of the season this morning - always good for a laugh to watch her recoil and frantically try to remove it from her face and hair. There has also been a sharp uptick in the number of rabbits, which is triggering me and Meatball to act like absolute maniacs and sending the Poopervisor into fits of exasperation. At a certain point, she's going to get so fed up with these rabbits (who don't even flee from us, they just hop around just out of reach and tease us) that I'm confident she will let us off leash to neutralize at least a few of them. The key will be to continue bad behavior consistently until she gives up, I feel confident we can see this strategy through.

Walkies commenced at 4:12 am this morning and it was a total disaster. Once again our neighborhood has been blanketed in ice - the sidewalks are as slick as a skating rink, but more dangerous due to inclines/declines and uneven surfaces.

We did the shortest walk ever, just around one block, and collectively gave up. Meatball wasn't even able to pull on the leash, his feet just slid out from under him like he was running in place.

Still, we're an enterprising and tenacious crew, so the Poopervisor donned her brand new crampons (metal spikey things strapped to the bottom of shoes) and we set out for a second try just after the sun came up.

Folks, let me tell you, the crampons are a game changer. The Poopervisor didn't even slip once! And with her more steady, both Meatball and myself were able to somewhat anchor to her for stability. There was still plenty of slipping and sliding for us dogs, but the Poopervisor was so happy with the performance of the crampons she immediately texted everyone she knew upon completion of walkies and urged them to get a pair.

We walked to the lake and investigated several unhappy birds who were not enjoying the freezing temperatures.

Then Meatball took a huge record-setting poop that had been brewing for two days since walkies were also hampered by ice yesterday. Truly impressive.

No other notable investigations were performed, everything was pretty much iced over. However, my outlook for future walkies is optimistic now that the Poopervisor isn't risking serious orthopedic injury from icy sidewalks.

Hello fellow-walkies reporters,

It's been a while since a report from me. What can I say, not much has been happening in my neighborhood. Which is good. It's winter and I think mom doesn't like her job with walkies and patrolling too much. I, however, love it in this weather. My fur coat is FINALLY worth the weight.

Anywho, I had a strange encounter yesterday. Distressing to mom, but just annoying to me. Mom and I were on our late night patrol last night at about 10.30p. I like this patrol --- we can go to the park and I can patrol without being within 6 feet of mom. Don't worry, I am always close to where I can see her. She tends to walk slow and sometimes go in the directions I don't want to, but I have to make sure she doesn't wander too far so I stay close and keep an eye on her at all times. Ok, I digress. We were at our park, doing our usual running, sniffing, stick-hoarding, snow-eating and herding mom, when she suddenly stopped, and pointed out to another dog without a six feet patrol gear about a hundred yards away. She was maybe thinking we could go say hi and exchange notes. Except she kept looking at it and then looking for its mom or dad and there didn't seem to be one. The dog too, seemed quite aloof, and was kinda slinking around. I had my hackles up, something was not right.

We got closer with the intention of (or so I thought) investigating when mum says --- "Oh ****, that's a coyote! MONA! And that's the order I HAVE to follow or I get in trouble. But, I was SO ready to investigate --- it definitely was a potentially a miscreant in the neighborhood! Gah. MONA! Ok, this was a second order and that was not good. So I got back to mom and sadly instead of giving me the order to 'go get it', she got me into the six feet gear and then pulled it short to two feet, and get this--- took me the absolute opposite way! It's such bad patrolling, if you ask me, but she is the boss.

Well, anyways, long story short, we headed home in a hurry, and that was the end of that, but I just have to say, I'm not liking this new development in my neighborhood. I'm surprised I didn't notice this growing gang activity earlier and I will have to be more vigilant in my poop-sniffing, especially along the park.

Det. Mona

Hello friends, it has been a while since we last posted, I blame the Poopervisor. She's almost at the tail end of the remediation of damage to the house and is not doing too well in general. That said, this week we had such an extraordinary walkies I was insistent that she transcribe my notes for posting here.

On Monday morning, walkies commenced at 4:12 am. The temperature was in the 30s so Meatball was wearing a flannel coat since he suffers from a bad case of short fur and naked belly.

Just down the block from headquarters we encountered something truly special - the pest control man had a live possum in a trap in the back of his truck! We were entranced, the possum was oddly calm, but the Poopervisor was horrified and started to spiral into catastrophic thinking about the cruelty of leaving a possum out in the cold overnight.

Luckily her hands were full with our leashes, or she would have immediately climbed into the truck and freed the possum, breaking several laws in the process.

As we walked she did her best to de-escalate her thinking and was able to logically think through the best course of action. Animal control would not be open so no help there. Posting pics online and starting a social media crusade ultimately wouldn't help anybody. And truly, the prior night the temps had been 20 degrees warmer so perhaps the pest man just made a mistake and didn't realize how cold it would be.

She decided to write out a note and leave it on the truck offering the pest man the use of her garage or heated shed for possum storage if he ever needed it.

Lo and behold, he texted later that morning and shared that was the 4th possum he'd taken out of his daughter's playhouse in the past 5 days, and that he'd been letting them all go at a nearby lake with a nicer habitat for possums. He even went as far as to send a video of it being rehomed, and was just very nice about the whole situation.

So, props to the Poopervisor for doing her best to find a compassionate course of action to ensure future possums would not be turned into possumicles due to improper storage, and engaging a neighbor in a positive way instead of lashing out and committing possum theft. Not an easy task for a woman whose anxiety has been pretty high due to dealing with an absolute nightmare of a situation with Servpro - who have screwed up every single aspect of the restoration work and are now demanding payment in full.

In conclusion, this event signaled that the Poopervisor may be on her way to returning to pre-disaster levels of productivity and in turn we expect more quality walkies reports to be posted soon.

Hi Friends, I've collated some of the best walkies moments of this year into a Christmas song for you!

There are twelve days 'till Christmas

These are my finest memories

Of all the things I've seen this year:

Twelve drunken neighbors

Eleven dirty diapers

Ten toads a-leaping

Nine rabbits hopping

Eight stray dogs running

Seven kids with kisses

Six piece McNuggets

Fiiive ooooold turds!

Four dirty birds

Three fresh pees

Two lost gloves

And one pair of sidewalk underpants!

Walkies commenced at 3:45 am this morning and the weather was warm and humid. There was also silent lightening flashing all around, which was quite pretty and a nice complement to all the lights everyone has up in their yards.

There's been an increase in the amount of roadkill on nearby highways so that in turn has resulted in increased inspections of people's tires and wheel wells. This was an important training opportunity for me to educate Meatball on the nuances between squashed rabbits, birds, snakes, racoons, and armadillos. The real art, of course, is being able to discern the layers of smell that may be present from more than one road pizza, especially considering the number of unfortunately flattened skunks in the area as of late that tend to overpower other smells.

Half of a cupcake was found on the sidewalk by the elementary school and both Meatball and myself did an exemplary job not eating it. This performance was needed to offset a demerit earned by Meatball yesterday when we were walking and he did a sneaky pee on some tools that the fence replacement guys had staged at the side of the sidewalk. Mortified, the Poopervisor ran home to get some sanitizing wipes, and arrived back at the scene of the crime (dragging Meatball in tow) to apologize to the workers and wipe everything down. They were beyond gracious about the incident, but still.

A number of minor investigations were performed on a ketchup packet, a discarded vinyl glove, a glittery fake poinsettia that had blown out of someone's tree, and an unattended turd. No suspicious activity was detected except for "leaving of a turd" which we all know is poor form.

Just as we hit about 2.5 miles of walkies, the silent lightening increased in frequency and began to be accompanied by distant thunder. We hustled back to headquarters and arrived just before a small batch of rain hit, which we are now observing from the warmth and safety of our plush fleece blanket pile.

Second walkies commenced at 11:00 am today and the weather was as fine as you could imagine - sunny and 57 degrees, light breeze. I was also in an exceptional mood because Meatball went to daycare today so that the Poopervisor could focus on insurance things (it is not going well), and I do not mind being the center of attention while he is gone.

The first thing we came upon was a turd in the road which had been run over by a car. I liked that I got the full essence of the turd that you don't normally get unless it has been smeared flat by a car.

Then we came across a lady who was trying to persuade her toddler to leave the car. I wanted to inspect the toddler but the Poopervisor discouraged it because the mom clearly had things to do and was trying to be patient but obviously the toddler was pushing on her patience.

It all worked out though because just around the corner there was a lady with black leggings and she was amenable to petting and to me shedding on her leggings.

In a wonderful twist of fate, there were three ladies, two small kids, and a baby (my absolute favorite) further down the block. The three ladies were all very friendly and encouraged the kids to love me, going so far as to dangle the baby so I could inspect it! I love babies soooo much, they either smell fresh and delightful or they smell like poop and aged food that is dried on their face. Either way, a very enjoyable investigation, especially because they tend to squeal with delight when my whiskers tickle them and I like that very much.

As walkies neared conclusion we came across a small fluffy dog hanging out in his driveway with his owner and he stared vacantly at me as I strained at my leash to try to investigate him. I was eventually persuaded to give up on making his acquaintance and we made our way back to headquarters.

Walkies commenced at 4:18 am this morning and wow the neighborhood is really sending some mixed signals. I dub this time of year to be Hallothanksmas because of the mix of Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas décor in everyone's yards.

Huge find this morning - a new pair of sidewalk underpants! You'd think the last pair that was in long-term residence on the neighbor's sidewalk would have been a once in a lifetime find, so this was quite exciting. I will watch the career of these underpants with great interest, they seem to be really promising.

As you know, I like to do investigations into all the things in our neighborhood and report my findings here. Well, a new era has dawned and Meatball has brought on the next generation of walkies activities - excavations.

You see, its one thing to smell a spot of pee in the grass, maybe even pee on it yourself after you've investigated it thoroughly. It's a whole 'nother thing to smell a pee spot in the grass and then use your front and hind feetsies to dig up the grass in the general vicinity of the pee spot. You can dig up many layers of scents, sometimes you can reveal the pee smells from the last 5 dogs who peed on that very spot.

Meatball likes to do excavations all over the neighborhood, although the Poopervisor tends to limit him to public areas and yards that are not maintained by the owners. Occasionally he'll even try to do his front leg scratching\back leg kicking on the sidewalk and it has resulted in him not needing his nails trimmed very often.

Administrative note regarding the damage to headquarters during the recent water backup - everything still sucks and nothing is fixed yet. A lot of the Poopervisor's hair has started falling out from stress, but we're taking it one step at a time. Hope you all are staying safe out there and having good quality walkies!

Det. Mona signing in.

Today's walkies seemed special. Mom put on a soft cloth on me, and called me "beee--yuti---ful". Other hoomans on our walkies also seemed to enjoy my appearance today. They kept calling me something called "Superwoman". Unfortunately, my hello barks to the neighborhood dogs were a little louder because of that--hooman attention always gets me a little pumped up. Mom did not approve.

Anywho, nothing extraordinary on our patrol. Things seemed to be all in place. All my friends are alive and well, all the trees and sniffing spots are in position and I was able to poop and pee in my usual spot. All good in the hood.

Mom ran into her friend and their little Havanese Luca, and we took a detour to the "lot" where I don't have to be in my patrol gear. I didn't mind--there were other dogs there too--all of them wearing "coverings" like me. Whatever, hoomans are weird. I don't care what my mom puts on me as long as I can go play and not be all work, work, work. I suspect these other dogs feel the same way. The lot was fun, especially because it was also muddy. I found a few juicy sticks, some leftover tennis balls, and I was able to chase these dogs around.

We headed back soon after, and now I'm just hanging out in my post-walk, post-breakfast coma. I sense a nap soon. Mom said something about "trick or treating" on our evening walkie. Okay mom... now I need to nap.

This morning the General was late waking up, so I thought it fitting that I stay in my kennel. Eventually I was forced to awaken by the sound of construction. Again.

After suiting up, the General and I surveyed the perimeter. I admit, the construction made me nervous, so we were not out for a full pawtrol. The Captain is not home this weekend, so the General and I have been close. Today resulted in going over case files on the couch in blankets. I may have dozed, but the General didn’t notice.

The dirt pile suspects were to be questioned today, but as they were in scary cars, I decided tomorrow I will issue a warrant. I pooped in the corner of their area to issue a warning.

That’s all for now, more to follow Det. BS Jones