Free All That Glitters (Raine Stockton Dog Mysteries) by Donna Ball

 
    T here are people, I know, who say dogs don’t understand Christmas.  These people clearly have never had dogs.  These same people say that dogs have little, if any, long term memory and no ability to conceptualize or categorize events.  I would very much like those people to explain to me how a field-champion golden retriever can sit by his handler’s side and watch four different birds be shot down and fall in four different places in a marsh six hundred yards away, and then, on command, go directly to each bird and return it to the handler—in the precise order that it fell.  And then they can explain why my golden retriever, u pon seeing a certain green felt wreath wrapped in plaid ribbon come out of its box for the first time every year, automatically sit s and start s licking his chops in anticipation.
    The Dog Bone Wreath is a Christmas tradition that has gone on as long as I have owned dogs.  Ever y year on December fifteenth the wreath comes out and is decorated with colorful frosted bone-shaped dog biscuits and hung in a prominent place in the training room .  Each day until Christmas, the dogs get a bone from the wreath, like a doggie Advent calendar.  Since the wreath is only up ten days a year, and since a year is a really, really long time for a dog, you’d think they would forget in between Christmases.  But they never do.
    Dogs might not understand the concept of Christmas, but they have never misunderstood  the concept of treats.
    This year my young friend Melanie—age ten going on thirty—was helping me decorate the kennel for the Dog Daze annual Christmas party. Her puppy, Pepper, was in the back having a shampoo and blow-out for the big event, and the rest of dogs were out in the play yard with one of the kennel staff .  B ut Cisco refused to be distracted from the  excitement he could literally smell on the air.  He was Cisco, after all, and tracking was his specialty .
    Melanie laughed when the Dog Bone Wreath went up on its hook and Cisco, with the instincts of a born chow-hound, looked up from the cardboard wrapping paper tube he was chewing, spotted the wreath without hesitation, galloped across the room and skidded to a perfect sit beneath it. Even I couldn’t prevent a grin and a respectful round of applause.
    “Can he have a biscuit now , Raine ?” Melanie asked.  “This is day one, right? I think he should have a biscuit now.”
    I t had taken the two of us half an hour to tie the dozens of do g biscuits to the wreath with decorative plaid bows, and we had enjoyed the display for less than a minute , but what kind of Scrooge would I be to say no? I untied a treat and gave M elanie the privilege of dispensing it.   
    “Come on,” I said, picking up the box of Christmas ornaments .   “Everyone is going to be here at two, and we’ve got to finish decorating the dog tree.  Grab that box of Christmas stockings too, will you?”
    Melanie plopped her “Santa’s Helper” elf hat back atop her unruly dark curls, gave me a snappy salute, and picked up the box of miniature felt stocking s that we would be stuffing with dog biscuits as party favors.  Cisco made a quick detour to grab his half-chewed cardboard wrapping pape r tube, and dashed after us.
    In a small town like our Smoky Mountain community of Hansonville, North Carolina, December is filled with parties, tree-lightings, pageants and concerts . I’m happy to say that the Dog Daze Christmas party is among the most pre s tigi ous of all the community events —at least with the dog crowd.  It had started out as a way for m y business partner, Maude, and me to thank our clients for their patronage throughout the year, but had grown to include just about everyone in town with a dog.  We had obedience and agility demonstrations, dog games and human games; cookies, cupcakes and punch for the humans and  dog biscuits and fresh water for the canines.  Everyone brought a wrapped dog toy for the gift exchange, and