Hello everybody,

I presume that you have all read the beautiful story about my personality from a human perspective. It made very interesting reading but I would also like to give you a description from my perspective. My name is Sirius and I am the ship’s dog on the bark Europa. I am a beautiful example of a “Friese Stabij” and I am travelling the world’s oceans with my boss and the misses on a ship with a lot of other human beings, a lot of ropes, sails and rules. These rules are specifically applicable to myself as I am under the impression that the members of the so called “voyage crew” have a lot more privileges than myself!! Can you believe that? They seem to be more important than the ship’s dog!!!! First of all, they all have their own bunk. My bunk consists of any available quiet place on the ship’s deck with the always luring risk of being tramped on. Therefore, my boss has decorated me with lights that are normally used in his Christmas tree!!!!!
When something exciting is happening on board, like dolphins swimming past, I will immediately be locked up in my boss’s cabin whilst I actually should be outside to protect the ship against these horrible monsters!! The voyage crew however, are allowed to stay outside and experience all the excitement although they know nothing about the ocean and all its threats.  On top of that there are many more exciting things like catching fish, new islands to be visited, officials visiting our ship and a lot of other things where I should be present to keep an eye on the proceedings. I am the ship’s dog, after all!!! Although I am not a revengeful kind of dog, I do have my little get backs. Nothing better than chewing my boss’s curtains when I am locked up in his cabin and bark very loudly. In the mean time they don’t know that I have e secret way out on the backside……………

Another thing that annoys me is that the voyage crew have the availability of bathrooms. They have to share them with some other crew members but still…. I do not have a private bathroom and the places where I am supposed to “do my thing” are shared with everybody and not private at all!! On top of that nobody seems to be happy when I do my thing. When peeing they come after me with a bucket of sea water and after planting a little landmine everybody seems to be cross with me.  In spite of this I remain the friendly character that can be expected from a dog of my stature. One of the most annoying things to me, as a dog, is the fact that whilst I can only smell all kind of delicious dishes everybody is allowed to go to the galley and return with plates piled with food. Walking with the
plates they can’t wait to start sampling the delicious dishes the ladies of the galley have prepared again. To add insult to injury, they are even allowed to go for seconds!!!! Where does this leave me, the poor ship’s dog? My boss, who is also the boss of the ship has issued specific instructions that I am not to be fed by anybody on the ship!!! Can you believe this???? Whilst everybody is having a feast I, the ship’s dog am confined to ordinary dog pills!!!
Although I am not happy with the fact that the voyage crew has a lot more privileges than myself, I must say that it is an interesting bunch of people. There are young ones, old ones, and we even have a few real Americans on board. It is very interesting to see how these human specimens are interacting with each other.  The attached picture shows how eager I was to go explore St. Helena
Island with the rest of the crew. But again, other rules apply for me as I was not allowed out of the rubber boat whilst everybody else was allowed to go ashore. I hope their muscles will ache for days after climbing Jacobs Ladder!!!! We have now crossed the Equator and I am waiting for Neptune to come and sort out all the POLLYWOGS.
It’s a dog’s life!!!!