I knew that once we got settled in at the Dream Center, it would be time for me to get to work.

I remembered from when we were here last year, that the guys who were here always loved petting me and I really put some big smiles on their faces.  These guys are here because their fighting a battle with addiction and many of them had some really tough lives before they got here.  I knew how much I could cheer them up, so I was ready to get started with my strutting and smiling and tail wagging right away.

As it turned out, my job got started before we even got the house on wheels set up.  You see, when we got there, it was kind of muddy and sloppy where the house on wheels was supposed to go, so daddy was outside getting a little frustrated because we were sinking into the mud and then two of the guys that we had met last September, Kyle and Jeff came up and said, “Hi” to us.  I was so happy to see them!  They remembered my name and I just knew right then how important the work that I was about to do was going to be.

That little visit even made mommy and daddy smile a bit too.

Mommy and daddy went to church with the guys the first full day that we were there and it was pretty relaxing for them at first because it was a Sunday.  Their volunteer work wouldn’t really start until Monday.  For me though, there was no time to waste!  I started walking around and greeting everybody that I saw right away.  There are never too many smiles to give out, so I wanted to get started as soon as I could.

The next couple of days, mommy and daddy helped at the thrift store that The Dream Center is about to open.

The guys start their day off with a prayer walk so that they get close to God first thing in the morning.  I told daddy that I wanted to do that too.  We walk everyday anyway, so why not walk with the guys during their prayer walk and then everyone who wanted to pet me could.  Now they would walk and get close to God and they could also pet me and smile.  It was a great plan and I was able to execute it to perfection!

I was a little sad though at first because there was this one guy who whenever he would see me, he would get as far away from me as he could.  I kept asking daddy, “What’s up with that?”  He would say, “Some people just don’t like dogs.”  I still don’t understand how that’s possible but to each their own.  More love for everyone else.

Then one night, the guys were coming back from dinner and I was there to greet them all and that guy, who I found out his name is Nathan saw all of the other guys petting me and smiling and he asked daddy, “Is your dog friendly?”

Daddy said, “Oh yeah!”

Then Nathan told him how he was scared of me at first because he heard me yelling at the goats a few times and that’s why he would get away from me during the prayer walk.  But when daddy told him that I love people, man that guy just started petting me and loving me and smiling from ear to ear.  Now every time that I see Nathan, he actually goes out of his way pet me and love up on me.

After that daddy told me that’s why I shouldn’t be barking and carrying on like a crazy dog when the goats and chickens come near the house on wheels or if we see them on our walks because then people think that I’m mean.  I kind of understand what daddy means by that, but I still need to make sure that those goats and chickens know who the boss is.

These goats leave treats for me all over the complex.

There is one thing that I like about those goats though.  I mean even though they just stare at me when I bark at them and look at me like I’m nuts, they happen to drop these delicious little snacks all over the complex for me, that I love to eat.  Mommy and daddy seem to get really mad at me when I eat those snacks.  They try to pull me away from them when I go to eat them and refuse to let me kiss them afterwards, but I love those things.  Daddy even says that I’m disgusting for eating them.  I just tell him that he shouldn’t knock it until he tries it.  He hasn’t tried any of them yet though.

So, everyday mommy and daddy are helping with something and I’m out there making sure that everyone is smiling.  I’m doing a really good job at that too.  All of these guys love me so much and I love them too.  There’s this one guy, his name is Bob.  He’s really tall, even taller than daddy is.  He really loves me.  He put me on a video that he was sending to his daughter for Christmas.  Now I was even cheering people up who lived miles and miles away!  He once said to daddy, “Your dog does so much more for us then we could ever do for him.”  When he said, “your dog” to daddy, he was talking about me.

Kyle and Caleb and Jimmy and Robert and Jeremiah all really make sure to pet me when they see me.  I mean, lets face it, all of the guys love to pet me, but those guys will make sure to walk up to me if I’m fifty feet away from them so that they can pet me and say hi.  I think that’s really cool.

Jeff made me pancakes and daddy made me pose for this picture before I could eat them.

Mommy and daddy eat almost all of their meals with the guys.  One of the guys that greeted us that first day, Jeff, he’s in charge of the kitchen staff here at the Dream Center.  He loves me so much that when they have pancakes for breakfast, he’ll make sure that mommy and daddy bring one back to the house wheels for me!  I really love Jeff!  He knows that the quickest way to my heart is through my belly!

Daddy had to go to Pennsylvania to take care of some business and it was just me and mommy for a while.  Me and mommy both missed daddy while he was gone, but we still had fun while he was gone.  We talked to him everyday on the phone.  He told me that it would be seven moons until he got back and he was right.  I was so happy to see him and so was mommy!  He got back on December 22nd, just in time for Christmas!

I was so happy to see my daddy again!

One thing that really made me happy when daddy got back is that he brought me two big bags of snacks that Aunt Cheryl sent back with him from Pennsylvania!  One was filled with bacon flavored treats and the other had these amazing peanut butter dog cookies.  Mommy and daddy said that those cookies smelled so good that they thought that they could eat them too.  I told them that if they sampled one of the goat treats, I’d let them try a cookie.  So far, I’ve been the only one in the house on wheels to have any of the peanut butter cookies.

The days leading up to Christmas were busy and fun.  Mommy and daddy helped put the gifts for the guys into their bags and all kinds of other neat things.  My job didn’t really change much, but I just gave out even more love and smiles as we got closer to Christmas.

Christmas Eve was really relaxing for me and daddy.  Mommy, not so much.  She was doing wash and making her world-famous potato filling for the meal on Christmas day.  Daddy did help mommy with the wash at times, but for the most part me and daddy just laid around out in the sun and listened to Christmas music.  It was such a beautiful day.  The perfect temperature and a nice cool breeze blowing all day long.  Daddy and I would nap for a little and then we’d walk over to the dorm so that some of the guys could pet me.  We’d go back and nap some more and then walk over to the dorm again.  It was a fun little routine that we had going on.

On Christmas day, there were only two meals with the guys, brunch and Christmas dinner.  Jeff ended up making one single pancake just for me!  Everyone else had biscuits and sausage gravy.  Jeff loves me so much that he made that one special pancake just for me!  That was an awesome Christmas present and it was delicious too!

I might have eaten too much on Christmas day, but so did mommy and daddy.  We just had to add extra steps to our walks the next day.  I had my regular breakfast and then some of those bacon treats from Aunt Cheryl.  A little while after that, I had a couple of those peanut butter cookies, then the pancake, and all kinds of other treats including some of the goat treats on my walk.  It really was one of my favorite Christmas days in my life.  Daddy told mommy the same thing as they were getting into bed that night.