Hannah’s Happy Holiday Heart

Mom’s not particularly smart. You would have thought that after the yarn incident she would have closed the door to the temporary-Christmas-present-wrapping-room, but no. She left it wide open for the taking, and take did we! Hee, hee! Falalalala lalala la! Lucy and I had a hay day in there with the paper and the ribbon and those wrapping paper tubes (they’re the best to toss around). Mom bought a nice drawing book for her nephew, Andrew. It was sitting on a bench in there waiting for a wrap. I noticed the cat on the cover and couldn’t help but chew the book apart. It didn’t taste very good, but it was fun to put a hole in that cat. Mom was a bit irate when she saw what we had done. She said we were full of badness, but she was giggling, too. Good thing she’s about to have a holiday and Lucy and I are headed to Camp Beth Ryan. (We love hanging out with Beth. She’s a really cool dog sitter and her boyfriend, Steve, is real nice to us, too.)

But the best thing we’ve been doing lately is visiting more Boys and Girls Clubs! Man, oh, man do I love that! I think we’ve been to 14 Clubs in all so far, and five in the past week. We go in and everyone freaks out that I’m such a big dog now (with a puppy cranium). I get to strut around in my edelweiss harness and I pick up every crumb I can find, because I’m a chowhound and useful on clean up patrol. Mom’s been sporting an Austrian jacket that makes her look like she’s about to yodel, and she says she’s been a chowhound, too, celebrating December

in caloric fashion. It’s all very festive. The kids love petting me and laugh at the pictures of me when Mom reads the book. They’re pretty darn cute kids, I must say! One girl that didn’t have a dog said she had a pet hermit crab. I wonder if it likes to play with wrapping paper tubes and ribbon.

Mom says she’s ready for a little holiday break and a week away from my book, “A Snow Day For Hannah.” She thinks book sales might be nearing 1000 in 10 weeks and she’s happy about that, but a little pooped. Alamosa Public Radio interviewed her last week and the Vail Daily and Summit Daily are running articles about us this weekend. We’re in about 70 book & toy stores so far. Baker and Taylor placed a humongo order last week that made Mom skip around for a whole day, and another distributor, BooksWest, is going to carry the book, which made her smile a lot, too.

We're grateful for all the good things that have happened this year and the friends that have helped us along the way!!! Hope you have a bountiful holiday full of bowwows, bows, and boxes!

Love and holiday cheer,
Hannah

Carting & Caroling with the BMDCR

The Bernese Mountain Dog Club of the Rockies had a great gig last weekend called "Carting and Caroling." The decked out dogs were soooo cute and these carts are soooo cool! (We need to get one for book peddling - and maybe a penquin, too. It's the right colors after all.) And these guys had a great sense of humor, too. For example, here are some of the doggie lyrics to the carol, "White Christmas":

I'm dreaming of a dog biscuit
Tall as a house and twice as wide
Little toys that squeak
And kids that shriek
And huge bones made of rawhide.

Then there were tunes using lyrics like "yellow snow, yellow snow, yellow snow!"

Dad, of course, loves to sing songs, especially if the songs have funny lyrics. There were Berners toting

Berners, Berners celebrating in Christmas outfits, Berners hanging in Hanukkah hoopla (or were those Hannah-ka getups?) and lots of holiday cheer to go around. One dog howled through the whole thing. I'm not sure if he was singing or trying to get the people to stop their silly canine santa songs, but everyone was in a happy holiday mood, and very well behaved I must say!

Hope you're starting to get in the holiday spirit, and that you need lots of books for kids, too!

Mom thinks she's at about 600 "A Snow Day For Hannah" books sold in 2 months with more orders coming in, and apparently that ain't all bad!!

Love and cartfuls of holiday cheer!
Hannah

Hannah Spins a Yarn

It was super duper cold out today so Lucy and I were left inside while Mom and Dad went to work. Mom wasn't too happy with me when she got home. Not only was I hangin' real sweet on the couch, but I found her knitting and tore that yarn all apart. Boy was that a blast!! She yelled at me and called me a "feline." That didn't sound too good to me. She said I needed to do 100 hail marys and no bones for a week. She said I could have choked to death and kept ranting and raving on and on, bla, bla, bla.

But that scolding wasn't as bad as last week. We did this whole book thing in northern California - driving around peddling books. Lucy and I were pretty good hanging in the lap of luxury in the back of the Tahoe on our cushion thrones until we picked up Dad at the airport and got to Sacramento. Then I found some great smelling poop on the lawn next to the gas station and rolled in it. (We only had two more days of driving to go!) Boy was Mom on fire then!! Dad tried to squeegy that great poop off of me and Mom kept pouring water on me and saying a lot of bad words I'm not supposed to repeat.

But the trip was worthwhile. "A Snow Day For Hannah" is in about 60 book and toy stores now and we're running out of those cute little stuffed dogs that look like me with the edleweiss collars. And hey, the Follett Company contacted Mom unsolicited and said they want her to set up an account so that their library and school customers can buy the book. She was a lot happier about that than the poop roll. She danced around a lot and so Lucy and I danced with her.

Hope you don't need a sweater!
Love and yarn balls to you!! Hannah

Hannah Blocks Tai Chi Man

We've been peddling books through Utah, Nevada, and now we're at my favorite beach, Carmel (where we already shot "A Beach Day For Hannah" - 2nd in the series). Things are a little different out here in California. We were going on this great walk this morning on Carmel Beach, where they let the dogs run wild and free, my favorite thing! There were tons of great dogs to play with and Lucy and I found a dead seal to roll around in. Boy did we smell good and gross out Mom!!

But the highlight of the day was Tai Chi man. He was all peaceful, doing his graceful moves and along we came. Of course I can't ever resist running through someone's legs to get a pet! Boy was he surprised to see me there, the ying to his yang. We all had our energies flowing then! Mom wasn't too please that we disturbed this man's meditation, but he was laughing, so I think it was okay.

Hope you have a great Thanksgiving full of free flowing spiritual well-being!

Love and Harmony, Hannah

PS - A Snow Day For Hannah is now available at Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble!

Travels With Hannah

I traveled around the western part of Colorado last week with Mom and Julie Mordecai, Executive Director of the Colorado Alliance of Boys and Girls Clubs. We all had a blast meeting kids, doing readings, and I especially liked all the attention I got. One little boy was so excited to see me he wet his pants (like I do sometimes when I see my folks after they've been away for awhile). Another boy said "I had a dog but someone killed it!" That scared me a little, but Mom says I'm pretty safe.

Anyway, we must have met over 200 kids altogether in Craig, Steamboat, Grand Junction, Durango, and Alamosa. Lots of them have dogs of their own. But they thought I was cute, too.

Mom got to stop at lots of books stores and we were in a few papers and we even got to be on the public radio in Ignacio! Mom was a little nervous to be live on the radio, but it sounded like she did okay and another guy, Vonn, from the Boys & Girls Clubs was on with her.

But our favorite thing was that Julie had a pajama party in Alamosa and a bunch of kids came over in their jammies for a reading while their parents drank wine and bought books to support the Boys & Girls Clubs. We met a 7 week old adorable Bernese puppy named Yoda. He was missing his litter and sure liked to play with all the little stuffed dogs that Mom was selling with the book! Can you tell which one he is?

Tomorrow we head out to peddle books in Utah, Nevada, & California!

Love and Kisses from Hannah!

Halloween Hannah & Hounds

I wanted to go to the Halloween parade as Eve to celebrate Steve Jobs and that bite out of his apple, but Mom said I needed a bigger fig leaf. I wonder when they're going to come out with the iPooch or the iPaw so I can interact more. And while we're on that, why didn't they ever just create the iMe? That's what all this new technology is about after all, right?

We went to a grand Halloween parade with people and pooches in Carmel, CA this weekend. There was a hot dog lunch afterwards that seemed a little inappropriate to me. This town is known for it's dog friendliness after all! Dogs lounge on couches at Doris Day's hotel, and they hang out in restaurants and wear designer clothes here. We visited the awesome Diggity Dog pet boutique and watched this pug try on his halloween outfits. I think he ended up as the clown, but he could have sold margerine with that crown on!

We sold more books to some of Dad's golf buddies. They may have been harassed a little bit, after all, they aren't used to buying kids books. But they'll see - they have grandkids that will love it when they read it to them. And it sounds like the book may have made it into our first west coast stores. Back at home Mom had great success last week reading to kids at Boys & Girls Clubs and getting the book into stores along the Front Range of Colorado. Here's a list of places so far if you want to support your local bookstore!

Happy Halloween, but don't eat unwrapped bones from strangers!

Love, Hannah

The Ball is Rolling - And Dogs Love That!!

I saw Mom out there in the yard doing a few back flips today. She said Barnes and Noble is going to order some of my books! The ball is starting to roll and she's chasing it around fast like I do with Lucy all the time playing fetch and wrestling and stuff like that. She looks funny running around in circles, I must say.

Tomorrow she's heading out on a Boys & Girls Book Tour around Colorado. The first leg is to Loveland, Fort Collins and Greeley. I can't wait to see those kids for sure, for sure. They love petting me

and I love that part the best. Plus they're even cuter than me... not sure how that could be!

Speaking of rolling balls, Dad told one of my favoirte stories about the Golden Retriever who was studying to be a service dog. On one of the last days of his testing period he was in a hospital and what came down the hall but a man on a walker, and, oh no! He had tennis balls on the bottom of that walker. Well, that Golden took one look at that walker and had to Retrieve - that's what dogs and balls are all about after all! I don't think he passed the service test, but he's probably a great pet right now for some lucky human...

Love and paws crossed to sell bone loads of books!

Hannah

Hurrah! The Book Has Arrived!!

Mom's pretty jazzed up now because the book has finally arrived. Lucy and I have been getting extra petting time and even some meaty bones to naw on. It's been a good few dog days for sure.

Here's the cool thing. Mom is going to give some of the proceeds of the book to Boys and Girls Clubs. We already went to do a reading with a bunch of kids, which was soooo much fun! (I of course got to go and I loved those kiddies, oops, not to be confused with kitties.) I loved rolling around on the floor getting petted by all those great kids. It was a real hoot, and Mom really liked it too!

Mom's going to peddle some other stuff, too. She got all these crazy stuffed animals that look just like me and put these little heart collars on them, just like me! She's gone a little bonkers I think - over the top you know... It was a little wierd to have all those puppies around the house, but I liked them alright. They weren't much into wrestling though, like Lucy and I like to do.

And she's also selling these really fun note cards and get this, I'm on the front (go figure) being cutesy as all get out... playing in the snow, flying through the air, being a generally puffed up pup.

People are kind of excited and there's a little buzz in the air.

The book did really well at a couple of library conferences last week. Everyone was looking at it and taking bookmarks and cards. The lady at the conference put the book right in front because she said it would draw all kinds of people to her booth... and sure shoot it did!

Anyway, we're all excited around here and if you want to buy a book, you can do it now at http://www.mountaindogbooks.com

This little stuffed dog sure tastes good!

Lots of love flying around!
Hannah

Hannah & Her Sister Star in Ben-Fur

As dogs we, of course, eagerly love to go on walks ~ as many walks a day as anyone will take us on! It’s the highlight of the day ~ all those smells, places to go, things to see… But now that I’m a little older this has become problematic if only one master is available to walk us together.

At first Mom tried walking us on separate leashes and complained it was like reigning in the Budweiser Clydesdales. (Click on Clydesdale video - love the hair extenders!) Frankly we did conspire to drag her down the street; and then connived to wrap the leashes around her legs; and then argued about it loudly when we were all tangled in a

knot. It was hard for Mom to maneuver a baggy pick up as well. That’s always quite exciting. We’ve even pulled Mom down a couple of times, we’re so strong as a team. She’s not too keen on that!

So Mom got us a new get-up ~ well really she rigged it so that Dad could walk us both over to get her Starbucks latte in the morning. He claims we’re like Ben-Hur racing around the track with our harnesses and the doggy connectivity device. (Click here for exciting Ben-Hur race & imagine Dad in one of those hats) Lucy and I think we’re the stars of Ben-Fur... but me thinks Dad’s kinda being a chicken. He’s too scared to carry the two cups of hot coffee back in the chariot. Mom’s gotta figure out a coffee connectivity device so we can work it all out and accomplish our act of service in the morning.

Mom says my book is finally coming in a couple more weeks. I can't wait to see it!!

Love & tons of harnessed energy!!
Hannah

Hannah Understands Denver, The Guilty Dog

Over the weekend I did a bad, bad thing (but it was fun)! Mom had some gals visiting for some ‘girly’ time. Her friend Ann (who is creating her own blog called “The Healthy Lush”) had these awesome, fabulous smelling sandles. Ann eats lots of healthy soul food and so that’s probably why those soles were so hard to resist. I didn’t really chew on that part of the sandles, though. After all, that’s the most important part! I just chewed off the top thong parts - It seemed more helpful to leave the soles. Mom didn’t understand. She says I’m full of badness! She made me watch “Denver the Guilty Dog” three times and do a few hail Marys and sent me into time out. I know I was supposed to feel guilty, but Denver was hilarious on his way to the penalty box (Ann has a cool yellow lab dog named Bailey that kinda looks like Denver)

If you're into guilty dogs - watch this one too! Poor Maggie!

BTW, Mom is psyched because Baker & Taylor said that they will distribute the book and we're almost done with the proofs from the printer. Maybe we really will get the book in September!

Love and a soulful expression!
Hannah

Hannah & the Mama Grizzly

Mom says it’s a dog-eat-dog world in politics and I’m not supposed to bark about it because I’ll offend potential book buyers. She says even though there’s a lot of rabid politicians, there are a lot of nice Republicans and Democrats out there that like books about dogs, and that I need to “Wag More, Bark Less.” She says I can start my own Pee Party with a unique dogma and try to clean up the smelly mess left under the bushes if I want.

Don’t let your karma
Run over your dogma!

Love, Hannah

PS: Dad got a new mangroomer from Sharper Image!

Hannah & the Mangroomer

Hi, it’s Lucy here, Hannah’s sister. (I’m guest blogging today, that’s me on the left licking my chops.) Hannah’s in some trouble. We were driving up to the mountains and mom and dad stopped in Vail for a brief time and left us with a car full of fun stuff to consider. They think we are maturing, but we’re totally not at all! We’re still full of mischief!! But hey, think about it. They left us with a mangroomer and that looked like a dangerous item that needed to be taken down. I told Hannah, “Just imagine if dad turns that thing on us, he could shave us bald or give us a Mohawk, and then what would we look like? And leave us with a hairy rat tail, or a mullet to boot!” That might look good on other folks or a poodle, but she wasn’t too keen on that so we agreed to tear it apart ~ and his other electric razor too. Dad wasn’t too happy (although we did see him laugh), and he didn’t really want to share this story too much either. But it’s a good one and now his back is still like ours. He should be happy that we saved him!

BTW, mom says the book is going to the printer this week and should be ready in early September. We can hardly wait!

Keeping up the good work!
Love, Lucy

Hannah's Favorite Doggie Videos

Okay - so I really like to be the center of attention, but some friends sent me these two videos, and hey, I can spread the puppy love around sometimes, too! I do a little talking, but my sister yells a lot (my mom calls her Loudmouth Lucy), but this lucky talking dog went viral big time! (Dougie sent me this one; it's his all time favorite)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGeKSiCQkPw

and after watching this video that my friend Kate sent, I think I'll take up tango lessons! This Latino retriever is one talented muchacha!!

http://sorisomail.com/email/74298/como-se-danca-o-merengue.html

If you've got great doggie videos to share, let me know! I'll link them in my blog and website at http://www.mountaindogbooks.com!

Hannah & Her Monkey Business

Dad went fishing this morning with his brother and Mom was on the phone for awhile with her sister, telling her about my book, and so I snuck upstairs to find out what was going on up there. Didn't take long to find this cute little monkey - well, not so little. He was big and stuffed full of great stuffing like a big old turkey. He kind of looked like Curious George and so I shred him. (You know Curious George, right? He gets into so much trouble that it seemed like I should retaliate somehow.) Schnikees was that so much fun! I got the stuffing all over the room and my sister, Lucy, was just watching me and smiling. I think she's a little older and wiser, because I got into some serious trouble after my mom found the monkey and stopped laughing. Well, I think it was more about the other monkey business that I left for her in the other room. Sure stunk up the place real good! But she was on the phone and didn't let me out in time, and she was the one that left the door open so I could go up there! She should have known better!!

Happy shredding!
Love, Hannah

Hannah & the Blender

When Mom & Dad came home after going out to dinner last night I was totally freaked out and hiding in the bathroom, locked in the shower to boot! She couldn't find me but she was startled by this really loud noise in the kitchen. (I was startled too, to say the least!!) I don't know what happened but when I was sneaking up on the counter I think I knocked one of my big old paws onto some kitchen machine and moved a knob. Mom laughed when she saw the blender was on and the house hadn't burned down yet. She said she thought I was making margaritas, but I'm not sure what those are. I learned a lesson, though - no more sneaking up to look on the counter for me, boy! That scared the beegeebees out of me!

Don't get locked in the shower today! Come read my book instead!!
Love Hannah

Hannah's Safeway Adventure

I had the mostest funnest adventure this morning. (Even better than when we made my book!) Mom went into the grocery store and I waited patiently in the car for her. Usually I like to sit in the drivers seat when she’s gone and pretend I can drive. But today I waited in the back of the SUV because I could see her walk in and out of the store. I was really ready when she came out to load the groceries in the back. I pretended to be sitting real good and straight, but as soon as she leaned over to put in a grocery bag I jumped right over her and ran into Safeway! Oh boy, oh boy was that funtastic! I ran circles around all the fruit bins and she was chasing me everywhere, but sure shoot she couldn’t catch me. I think she was laughing pretty hard, but I can’t be sure. It was a super fun game. Some work guys were putting in really long florescent tubes. Luckily I dodged around them! Everyone in the store was so surprised and laughing at me. I was having a blast! I was trying to find the meat department but I never made it there. I headed for the front door with a big grin on my face! I almost knocked over a little old lady on my way out, but I was more careful than mom expected, which was a great relief to her. (I think she was glad it was so early in the morning and less people were there.) A nice man caught me in the parking lot. Boy, oh boy was mom mad! She yelled at me and said I could have been hit by a car, besides being just so plain unruly and full of trickery. I don’t know – what do you think? I think it was worth it!

Big doggy smile & lots of licks...
Love, Hannah

Hannah's Book: A Snow Day for Hannah

Hannah loves mountain climbing and the snow. When she sees a snow storm coming, she high-tails it home to wait out the storm. She can't wait until it's over because then she will be able to bound outside and play in the fresh snow.

Follow Hannah's snow adventure in this adorable children's book. Filled with fabulous photographs of this cute little pup, enjoy the rhymes as you watch her climb up!

Hi - this is Hannah and I would love it if you came to visit my very own website to look at my very own book. You can see all kinds of super cute pictures of me climbing mountains and doing fun stuff in the snow that you might want to do too! Do you know what? Some kids have never even seen or felt the snow and so together we can show them what it's like!

Lots of Puppy Love!
Hannah

About Me, Hannah the Mountain Dog

Hi there! I'm Hannah and I'm a Bernese Mountain Dog. My ancestors originally came from Bern, Switzerland. Sometimes people call us "Berners" as a nickname.

Do you have a nickname? My other nickname is "Hannibal" and my sister Lucy has the nickname "Lucifer." That's Lucy in the picture with me on this page. We love to play tricks on our people, Linda and Jim, and that's why they gave us these nicknames.

My breed is part of a family of dogs called "Working Class Dogs." Working Class Dogs are really big dogs like Saint Bernards, Newfoundlands and Great Pyranese. Those kinds of dogs are even bigger than me! Working class dogs work really hard at things like pulling milk carts and avalanche rescue, because, you guessed it, we all loooove the snow and the mountains!

And we love people and small people, too! We like to lick nice children and lean on their parents. And if there's any ice cream or peanut butter in sight - you better watch out because I might try to steal it from you!

People love us Berners, too. When I walk down the street, everyone smiles at me, and because I'm a very cute puppy, I puff up my chest, wag my tale a lot and smile back and try to get lots of people to pet me. I'm usually very successful at this, particularly if I'm sitting outside a restaurant waiting for Jim and Linda to finish breakfast. The guy at the breakfast place even named a special pancake dish after me! His name is Tim, his place is called Syrup, and he likes dogs a lot.

Sometimes Linda calls me "Wiggles" because I get excited and squirm around a lot. Do you do that? I bet you do sometimes. Squirm and giggle and wiggle? Those are some of my bestest moves.
Lucy and I are really lucky because we live in Colorado and we get to go hiking in the mountains a lot. One time, though, we drove all the way out to California and got to play on the beach. And you're in big Berner luck because soon you'll get to read about that beach adventure in another book that your folks or grandparents will buy for you!

Love and lots of wet kisses,
Hannah

PS - Come see the book about me called "A Snow Day for Hannah" at http://www.mountaindogbooks.com - I guarantee you'll love it!!