Being a Doggy Mama - Beeeeeg steeeeeck

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Puppy Girl has a new hobby and, with winter setting in, she's getting ample opportunity to indulge it.  

 

She's become a Big Stick Chick.

 

When we're out walking, she somehow manages to find - every time - a big, spindly branch that has fallen prey to pruning or temperature change.  Tail almost at 90 degrees to her back (a.k.a Joy Tail), she grabs the stick in her teeth, gnawing on it, open-mouthed, as if testing the bouquet of a prize Merlot.  

 

It's all happy-happy-joy-joy... until she tries to move.

 

Then the ends of the branch, the little branchlets coming off it, start to snag on the ground.

 

She tries to walk sideways, find a way to keep up with us, now waiting for a few steps forward on the sidewalk.  The little branchlets scrape the pavement slabs.   

 

She keeps pulling, trying to walk at different angles to make progress in a generally forward direction.  Somehow, she ends up with the branchlets dragging under her, now scritching her tummy.  She looks like she has an alien extension.

 

Not to be daunted, she adjusts the thickest part of the stick in her mouth.  

 

CRACK!

 

The branchlets spit off.

 

She's free!

 

She tries to gambol foward, to join us, still waiting for her.  Her brother is invariably sniffing something, oblivious to the canine Harold Lloyd homage in progress.  The stick, now free from it's spindly arm which rested on the ground, can swing from side to side.  Each step which Puppy Girl takes proves Newton's 3rd law and she tries desperately to balance the branch, which touches down, first on the right of her and then on the left.

 

By this time our giggling has grown into guffawing.

 

She moves her head to one side, biting down to try to tame the pendulum.  Tip.  Bite.  Tip.  Bite.

 

Finally - blissfully, the stick is bitten in two again, and she is now left with a somewhat manageable chunk.  And the tail waves higher, and the paws prance higher, and she's by our side again, ready to find her way back home.

  

 

To read more in this series, click here.

 

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He Said She Said - Poinsettia

They were in the hardware store. It was a quick stop, to get light bulbs.

"Ooh!" she said. "Look! Christmas crap!"
"Honey, it's November. We don't need this stuff yet."
"Aw, come on! Don't you want the 6 foot blow up Santa and Rudolph on the beach?"
"Honey, the light bulbs are back there, just keep walking..."
"No. You go get the light bulbs. I just want to look at a few things."
"Honey! We have tons of Christmas stuff in the attic! We don't need anything! Weren't you telling me we need to declutter?"
"Nice try. I tell you what. The sooner you go get the light bulbs, the sooner you come back, the sooner we have to leave and I have to stop shopping."
"As if you'll leave when I'm done!"
"Honey, seriously. I'm just looking. It's OK. You can go."
"OK, see you back here in five minutes."
"OK."
"FIVE minutes!"
"Oh-kaaaaaay!"

When they met again, she was carrying two rolls of wrapping paper and a poinsettia. They fell into step beside each other, heading towards the cash registers.

"I see you've bought something to kill," he said.
"Oh VERY funny!" she snapped back. "I KNEW you were going to say that! I was going to count the seconds till you did."
"Honey, if we're going to play Dead Pool, we should do it for the plant."

To read more in this series, click here.

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