Pssst! Woof! Keep your voice down and lean in a little closer so our owners won't hear us. Woof! That's better. My name is Bailey and this other guy goes by Max. As you can see, we're two very large Golden Retrievers - and we can talk. But don't let our owners know or they'll have us on television talk shows revealing our secrets. No offense to Oprah or Montel Williams, but it's better that we keep this between you and us.

I guess now would be a good time to tell you a little about ourselves. We'll go first and then you can email us and tell us all about yourself. Do we have a deal? Okay, here goes.

Max, or Sir Maxwell Barksalot as he's officially named, was born in North Carolina back in April 1993. I'm not so good at math, but I think that makes him a little more than ten years old. Is that right? My real name is Charbo's Bailey Boo, but I go by Bailey for obvious reasons. Would you want to be called Boo? I didn't think so. Anyway, I was born in September 1994 - also in North Carolina. That makes me a little younger than Max. Can you figure out how old I am? Do you know how old we are in dog years?

Max and I aren't really brothers because we come from different parents, but we've lived together since we were puppies. Our owners have been very kind to us and we've traveled to some very cool places. Woof Woof! Sorry, I got excited.

We used to live in a pretty big house with a pond and lots of places to sniff. Our owners would tell their friends that it was more than five acres, whatever that means. I told you we're not very good at math.

Then one day we noticed a lot of people at our house for a party. That happened quite often, but this one was bigger than the others and there was even a live band playing music. It wasn't a very good band, though; they didn't know our favorite song, "Who Let The Dogs Out." But the food was great and 'ol Max and I really worked the crowd into giving us lots of treats. It was dog heaven. That is, right up until we realized that all our stuff was being sold and we were being loading into the cars again. We never saw that house again.

But don't feel sorry for us, we moved to an even cooler place: a sailboat. That's right, kiddo. For almost four years, our owners sailed around the east coast of the United States, Nova Scotia, and all through the Bahamas. You might want to get a map or globe out to keep up. We had sand between our claws, we were allowed to swim with tropical fish, and we met some of the hippest dogs on the planet. We even got stories about our sailing adventures published in magazines and a photo of us wearing funny raincoats made the cover of a book about sailing with pets; nothing to growl about there.

Max and I haven't seen the boat in a while and are getting a little worried about what that means. Our owners are acting strange. Well, they're acting stranger than usual. You know how strange adults can be anyway. They've stopped wearing shorts and t-shirts. Now they are dressing in long pants and leather coats. We've overheard them talking about motorcycles and charities and taking a trip across America, but don't really understand what all that means.

Life changes pretty fast around here. It looks like we're in for some kind of new adventure. Max and I won't growl or complain about it, though. If this trip is anything like our other adventures, we'll get lots of free pets and meet wonderful people along the way. Oops, I have hurry and finish this note to you because I just heard our owners talking about fitting us with goggles. Huh? Goggles? It sounds exciting.

Remember to keep this little talk a secret between you and us. Adults never really understand things like this and we don't want them to get alarmed. We'll sneak back here from time to time and share more stories about this new adventure.

Be cool in school. We'll bark at you later.