It was early morning and very cold. I woke up and shook off the old sleep. The sky was still dark, and only a few other dogs were up walking around. Then something broke the silence. It was a man on a fourwheeler. He was going very fast, and the noise woke up all the other dogs and made some start barking. When the man passed us a lot of dust was kicked up and it came our way. I hadn't seen a human out this early in a long time, since midsummer. Then every night I would see humans walking around all night. But during the day I wouldn't see a person till the sun got high. They must be stupid, I thought. They are supposed to be up during the day and sleep at night. All they do is ride around with their machines. They are so lazy. Sometimes in summer the humans would go out with their boats and stay a long time. I saw them bringing their fish nets with them back home, but they never came back with any fish.

The only human I care about is our master. He feeds us and brings us out. All we do is pull him, but it is a lot of fun. He brought us out twice before the snow melted. That was about three or four weeks ago. I loved the first trip, but the second trip was O.K. too. There were a lot of snowmobile tracks along the trail that sort of went wild. I had a hard time since I'm the leader, and I kept getting mixed up. Then the snow melted and all I do now is walk in circles around my house and watch these humans thrash their planet.

Last week a group of teenage humans came to us and started admiring some of our pups. The pups' mother was trying to tell them to put the pups down so they could drink some milk. But the humans could not understand her. Only when she started getting mad did the humans put the pups down and walk away. They sure don't understand the things of nature very well. Soon they may even destroy nature.

Benjamin Peteroff