If you've made it this far, it's probably because someone — a human, I imagine, since we dogs aren't great at reading screens — told you about us. About Max. About me. About this small village that smells of salt, freshly cut grass, and, on Tuesdays and Fridays, the cookies Mike always carries in the right pocket of his jacket.
My name is Linda. I'm a seven-year-old Yorkshire Terrier, which, translated into human terms, makes me the one in charge of this house. Max wouldn't agree with that — he's an eleven-month-old Golden Retriever with the energy of someone who just discovered the world exists — but we both know who decides when it's nap time and when it isn't.
Seabreeze Bay isn't on any map a human could buy in a store. It's smaller than that: a main street, a wooden pier that creaks when the tide comes in, a very old oak tree in the square where a squirrel lives who thinks she owns the village — we'll get to that — and just enough houses for everyone to know each other by name. And by smell, which for us is almost more important.
Here every day starts the same way: the bell at the gate rings twice. Not once, not three times. Twice. It's Mike, and you don't need to see him to know it — I'd recognize that sound among a thousand. Max bolts off before I've even finished lifting my head off my blanket, and he's always, always late anyway, because he stops halfway to wave through the window at Shadow, the neighbor's cat, who never waves back but never leaves either. That's the strangest relationship in the village, and there are quite a few strange relationships here.
Like the one with Peanut, for example. A chihuahua the size of my front paw, with twice the courage of any dog I know, who's spent months bringing me shiny little pebbles from the beach as if they were diamonds. I haven't told him yet, but I've started keeping them.
Or like Max's with Bella, a three-year-old Golden who walks through the central park every afternoon with the elegance of someone who has no idea of the effect she has. Max turns into someone else the moment he sees her: two clumsier paws, a tongue that no longer knows where to go. She treats him with the calm affection of someone who sees a nice puppy, nothing more. He hasn't figured that out yet. Or he doesn't want to.
And then there's Rocco. The neighborhood "troublemaker," some say. The one who steals balls, knocks over trash cans, and barks where he shouldn't. What nobody else has understood — except Max — is that Rocco isn't looking for a fight. He's looking for someone to pay him enough attention to play. Max was the only one who stood still the first time they crossed paths, instead of running off. They've been inseparable ever since, even though the rest of the village still doesn't trust him.
I could go on. I could tell you about the squirrel in the oak tree, who counts every acorn like it's gold, or about Sunday afternoons on the pier, or about the first time Max tried to swim and got a scare he still remembers. But that's for another day. This is just the welcome.
What I want you to know, before you keep reading whatever it is you came to this store looking for, is this: everything you see here has passed through Seabreeze Bay first. Through our paws, our noses, our completely ordinary days in a village that probably doesn't exist anywhere except here, with you, right now.
Welcome to the village.
Next chapter I'll tell you about the squirrel. Trust me, there's a story there.
— Linda 🐾