Puppy Love

Companion

Write a new post in response to today’s one-word prompt.

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I hope you don’t mind if I write about my granddaughter’s new puppy again. It’s just such a delight to me to watch them together.  He’s five months old now, and has gained weight and height.  He’s still as cute as can be, and always will be.  He’s one of those small dogs who will always be cute. His fur is getting longer, and sometimes little curls stand right up here and there.  His tail is always wagging, and it involves his whole lower body.

He’s a very happy little dog. He’s already become the close companion for my granddaughter, who is his faithful primary caregiver. She feeds and waters him, takes him outdoors faithfully in the housetraining process, plays with him, holds him and encourages him to cuddle up with her if she’s sitting on the sofa reading.  He doesn’t need much encouragement.

The companionship between them is amazing. If he loses track of her, or she leaves the house without him, he paces back and forth into every room, making little whining noises in his throat that end in a question mark.  When she reappears, he acts as if he hasn’t seen her in years.

He’s stronger now, and loves a tussle with his knotted rope. He’ll  chase it, bring it back, and wait expectantly for her to take it from him. He makes ferocious growlings in his throat while his tail stirs up a windstorm.

(This is a five-month-old Cavachon I found online. It is not our dog, but it gives you a pretty good idea of his size and appearance.  This dog’s fur isn’t as long as Andy’s, and his markings are different,)

He loves people. He expects to be loved right back. We took the kids to a park a couple of times last week, and it was as if a whole new world of wonderful smells and loving people  opened up in front of this little dog. But always, always, he checks to make sure his little girl is where she should be.

As he grows up and settles down from the puppy stage, she is going to have a companion who will love her without condition or judgment, no matter what. There’s nothing quite like a faithful little dog whose love is in his eyes.

It’s a pleasure to watch them.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/companion/

Playful Puppy

Playful

Write a new post in response to today’s one-word prompt

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The puppy in my granddaughter’s life is more than playful. His personality is so energetic, playful, friendly, excitable, that his whole body wags with his permanently-wagging tail. He is so full of joy when anyone at all enters the room that he can’t contain his happiness.

He’s irresistibly cute, so you just have to bend down and pick him up. He starts twisting around to lick whatever his tongue can reach the minute he’s picked up. I hate dog tongue, so we’re having to curb that habit.

He loves necklaces.  Yesterday I was wearing a very long string of pearls that I had looped three times. His wiggly, squirmy legs and tail got caught in the loops, and I had to call for a rescue team to get us untangled. What you’ll see in the video is not our puppy, but he has some similar markings.  They’re all different, because they’re a mixed breed.

He does settle down.  He understands the word settle along with a firm tone of voice and a steady hand. But you can almost feel the energy coursing through his little body as he waits for his next opportunity to do his own unique version of the happy dance. 

He’s responding very well to my granddaughter’s training. He sits, stays, comes, on command. She has also taught him “down”, which means he’s to lie down flat. He also knows off, although he doesn’t like it one bit. He’s bred to be a lapdog, and he’s determined to get an early start on his career. He’ll also lift a paw for shake, even though he seems a little confused about why on earth he’s doing it.

I love to watch him run to chase after a toy or one of his people. He bounces.  Cutest thing.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/playful/

Happy Puppy

Dirty

Write a new post in response to today’s one-word prompt.

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The chubby, stumbling puppy frolicked through the fall leaves, patted through the little puddles of muck, rolled in the wet grass, and bounced back to make sure his people were still close by.

His silky ears flopped adorably as he wiggled and wriggled at the feet of his little girl, who laughed and bent down to pick him up.  He didn’t want to be carried, though.  He loved being outdoor in the woods, and he wanted to investigate  all that was so new and exciting to him. He squirmed out of  Callie’s arms, jumping back into the leaves before she had time to stand up.

There was a come-hither smell that he simply HAD to follow.  Nose to the ground, he paid no attention to anything but that tantalizing aroma. He pattered off the path, following the scent that zigged and zagged toward a nearby tree. As it grew stronger, his little body quivered with excitement. His tail stood up straight. He began to yip, knowing he was close to the source of the scent.

“Charlie!  Come back here!”  Charlie heard Callie calling to him, but he couldn’t have obeyed if he’d wanted to.  Now giving sharp, high barks of excitement and fear, he looked up the length of the tree.  How he longed to run up that tree, just as the grey fuzzy little animal had done!  He tried, but his paws just weren’t made for climbing.

Suddenly, a brown-grey streak  caught Charlie’s attention and he forgot all about the squirrel. Off he pranced, chasing this exciting new thing. He quickly lost sight of it, though, and landed SPLAT! in a mud puddle.  Oh, wonderful!  Rolling and yapping, he coated himself from stem to stern with sticky, smelly muck.

“Ooooh, no!  Charlie!  You silly little puppy!  You’re all dirty, and you’re going to need another bath!  Mommy won’t even let me take you inside until we get all that dirt off of you!”

Callie clipped the leash back onto Charlie’s collar, sighing as the mud he wore spattered on her arms and legs.

Looked as if she was going to need a bath, too.  Again.  Having a new puppy could be a dirty business.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/dirty/

Alpha Male

Note:  Mac was 15 years old this past November, and he was in a lot of physical discomfort.  He was still dedicated to my daughter, but he had so many problems that she knew it was time.  She had him put down a week ago today.  We will all miss this great little dog, who had a wonderful life and brought a lot of happiness to the whole family. I wrote the following story about a year ago. 

 

The last Christmas our daughter lived with us, we got her a puppy.  He was the offspring of a friend’s tiny little Maltese and the neighborhood Dachshund who came visiting one day when she was out on a running leash in their back yard. This little five-pound momma had a litter of six finger-length pups, with all the varieties of color and markings you can imagine from such a combination.

Our daughter used to babysit for this family, and she immediately fell in love with one puppy in particular. When she first met him, he fit nicely into the palm of her hand. She talked about him all the time. That was in the late fall.

My husband got busy and built a crate for the pup, without telling our daughter, of course. Just before Christmas, he passed the crate over to our son, who stopped  at the home of the puppies and picked up the one our daughter loved.  He was too cute for words by that time.  If memory serves he was about six weeks old.

When our son walked in the door on Christmas morning with the crate in his hands, Deb was completely taken by surprise. She was in tears pretty quickly, and Mac the Dachtese became our entertainment that day and for many months following.

That spring, Deb got her first phone call from the young man she would marriy.  He was quickly a frequent visitor in our home, and Mac wasn’t especially thrilled. At four or five months old, Mac’s attachment to our daughter was very strong. When Aaron showed up, Mac would raise his little black lips and snarl. There was never an all-out attack, just the snarl.  Often, Mac would insinuate himself between Deb and Aaron if they were sitting on the sofa. We laughed. Well, most of us did. Aaron wasn’t so sure.

Although Mac was doing well with house-training, we kept him off the living room carpet  by propping a piece of plywood across the opening between the living room and dining room, exiling poor puppy to the back side of the house. One day when Aaron came over, Mac was especially unhappy. He growled and howled, but no one took much pity on him. We all went about our business.

In maybe fifteen minutes, I realized Mac was nowhere to be seen.

“Deb, do you know where the dog is? I haven’t seen him in several minutes.”

“Uh oh.  Better check.”  Deb got up and stepped across the plywood, checking first in the kitchen and then coming back through the dining room to the bedrooms.  I’d gotten busy with something else, so when I heard her say, “Oh, NO! Mac! Bad dog! NO!” I  had to go see what the problem was.

She found him in the bathroom.  He had spun all the toilet paper off the roll and trailed it all over the place.  Fun new trick.  But that wasn’t all.  In several places, this tiny little dog had dropped enough  doodoo to make a whole new version of himself!  Piles of it, all over the bathroom floor.  Then he had sneakered out to a corner in the dining room, leaving another pile in one corner.  When Deb found him, he was hiding behind the bathroom door.

“Oh gross!  Oh man!  I can’t believe this!  How could such a little dog have that much in him!  Mac, you little brat!”  As she cleaned up the mess, though, she began to laugh. And so did all the rest of us–except Aaron. This was  such a perfect display of alpha dog marking his territory, letting Aaron know who was boss, keeping Deb’s attention on himself.

Well, things are better now.  Mac has reluctantly accepted Aaron’s alpha male position, and has even  welcomed three new little people into the mix.  He and Aaron aren’t exactly what you’d call soul mates, but they do all right.

 

 

Friends At Last!

My Wish

Out of Your Reach

Was there a toy or thing you always wanted as a child, during the holidays or on your birthday, but never received? Tell us about it.

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A lot was out of our reach.  There was very little money, and we knew that there would never be a pet in the house, but that is the one thing I yearned for. We had a neighbor who had  a beautiful little golden cocker spaniel. I would have given up every other treasure I owned to have a dog like that

I don’t remember the dog’s name. I just remember the liquid golden-brown eyes, the silky ears, and the eagerness to be petted and played with.  He was a beautiful little dog, and I loved him. 

Whenever he was outside and I saw him, he would quiver with delight until I could pick him up and cuddle him.  He had a very sweet nature, and would let me hold him as long as I wanted to.  Of course, I never wanted to put him down.

He was just a puppy when we first met, and I watched him grow to adulthood, but he never lost his puppy charm.  He was always cute, always friendly, always willing to be  held.  As he got bigger, it was harder to fit him onto my lap, but we figured it out.

When we moved away, I was heartbroken.  I’ve always wondered how long he lived, and if he ever found another little girl to love him and treasure him as he deserved.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/out-of-your-reach/