My Puppy Home

It is Feb 2014 ..........

We have a ten week old puppy. Her name is Cino, a small golden fluff ball with teeth like needles.

My house is strewn with toys of many colours and shapes. Balls in various sizes, colourful ropes, plaited and knotted with enticing chewable threads. A fluffy cat, bigger than she is.

We must be careful where we walk, or we will flatten her. She has gained a kilo in the last two weeks, but still only weighs in at 3.5 kilos. We do not push our chairs back without checking her whereabouts first.

All electrical cords are removed or lifted out of chewing height. Those rugs that can be rolled up to avoid their fringing being chewed or peed on are stored. The others are reliant on our vigililance and her mercy.

The sink is piled high with dishes, the bed gets made eventually, one night just before we got in it. Oh, my dear Mom would be mortified!

There are regular exclamations from my husband when he discovers little puddles, or worse, little piles, and a declaration that “SHE HAS TO LEARN!” We have used several rolls of kitchen absorbent paper, and a new bag of Spot and Stain Remover is on its way from Darwin. (I know.)

Not much is getting done, at least from my end. I feed the puppy, take the puppy outside to do wees and poos (you can see how effective I have been), play with the puppy, take her outside for wees and poos (after play, as the manual says ….), play with puppy, post her photo on Face Book, check Face Book, clean up wees and poos indoors, make a cup of tea, hug puppy’s cuteness, take puppy outside for wees and poos, have a shower (me, not her), clean up wees and poos indoors (more absorbent paper and Stain and Spot Remover), make lunch for us, make lunch for her, take her outside for wees and poos, she falls asleep and I crash on sofa and sleep for half an hour whilst she does, take her outside for wees and poos ….. And so on.

We are bleary eyed with lack of sleep.

But we laugh all the time, enchanted with her antics, her chasing her tail and yelping when she bites it. Her great Olympian dash for the verandah steps, a major miscalculation, and an almighty head on crash and tumble back to the grass. Her surprise when she barked, twice already, is this cause for alarm, she wonders, or is there another dog here somewhere? Her fear of upstairs, an area of our home we hardly visit unless we have visitors. She stands, cowering at the bottom of the stairs, like a wind up child’s toy, looking fearfully up the Everest of a staircase. We walk her up,  explaining how stairs work, as if she were a child.

Perhaps she is really.  The substitute child of an elderly couple, with lots of love to give, who are having such fun.