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The Puppy
I lay there, panting for breath as my life flashed before my eyes.
******
I felt my paws gently touch the ground as a female giant carried me out of a huge car and put me down. I stood on my own four feet again for the first time in what seemed like hours. Shivering with fear and anticipation, I looked around. I cautiously walked over to the grass. I took a few sniffs, then squatted. Ahh! That felt good. I’d been holding it in since I left. I’d barely finished relieving myself before two smaller giants, one a boy and one a girl, ran excitedly out the door. They surrounded me and both of them started to pet me at once. I wasn’t sure what to do with all this attention. Three long months with my mother hadn’t prepared me for any of this! Could I just go home now?
“Yes! I finally have a dog!” The girl giant exclaimed, squatting down to get closer to my height. “What’s its name? Is it a boy or a girl? What kind of dog is it?”
“Slow down, Chloe,” The driver, who I guessed was the child’s father,
laughed. “It’s not just your dog. Her name is Blondie. She’s a Chihuahua.”
“Hi, Blondie!” Chloe said, putting my head in her hands and then reaching behind my ears to stroke my head.
“How ya’ doin’ Blondie? You’re such a good dog! Good dog! You’re so cute! Aren’tcha Blondie-girl?”
As if it had a mind of its own, my little tail began vigorously wagging like a pendulum on steroids. My shivering subsided slightly as the younger boy struggled to find space to stroke someplace on my small body. Suddenly, I felt my paws leave the ground again, as Chloe picked me up and held me to her chest.
“You and I are going to be best friends forever!” Chloe said, rubbing the top of my head with her chin. I was liking this “Chloe” more and more. I reached my head up to lick her humungous face. She squirmed.
“Hey!” The smallest giant, who I later learned was Chloe’s little brother, exclaimed. “Let me have a turn!”
“Chloe,” Mommy said. “Let Jesse hold the dog.”
I felt myself being squeezed as Chloe held me closer to her chest. The girl looked up at Daddy, betrayed. “I’m the one that’s been asking for a dog. Besides, Jesse’s only five—he might hurt her.”
“I don’t see the problem, Chloe,” Daddy said, “I was five when my parents got me my first dog.”
“And so you waited until I was nine?” Chloe retorted.
“And so we waited until Jesse was five.” Daddy replied calmly.
“I guess there are perks and downfalls to being an older sibling,” Chloe said sourly. She gently handed me to Jesse, who wasn’t exactly sure how to hold me properly. I soon found myself back on the ground. I wasn’t sure what was going on. When was I going back home?
Chloe picked me up again and carried me into the house. She put me down again on the floor. I didn’t understand what was going on, but I followed Chloe around the house as she made funny noises that somehow made me attracted to her. She rubbed me behind my ears and made more strange sounds. Pretty soon, I wasn’t sure whether I was wagging my tail, or my tail was wagging me.
As days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months, I grew into an adult dog. I learned to consider this place my home: and I knew I had to protect it. Intruders would come to the house, and I’d try to tell them to leave, but the giants would just lock me up in a room. They wouldn’t let me attack those intruders that they called “friends.” I was only trying to protect them. Why wouldn’t they let me do my job? Ruff! Ruff! Intruder Alert! Intruder—sorry, I get sidetracked easily. It was nothing. I thought I heard someone knocking at the door. It was just Chloe seeing if Jesse was out of the bathroom yet. Sigh. Oh bummer. Ah well, let’s get back to the story.
The giants that I lived with weren’t always that bad. Most of them loved to play with me, and sometimes, other dogs would come visit. At first, I tried to get them to leave, but after a while, I started to tolerate these visiting dogs. Just as long as the dog left after a week or two.
The giants had this large ledge that they loved to sit in. The ledge was soft and cushy, and I loved to jump up onto it; especially when one of the giants was sitting on the ledge. They would pet me and hug me, and I’d crawl onto their lap and hot diggity dog! It was a dog’s life. It wasn’t long before the giants taught me that that ledge was called the “couch.” They even started calling me, “couch potato.” I didn’t mind what they called me as long as they gave me attention—and fed me.
Soon I learned that the couch-ledge had a higher ledge. The giants usually leaned against this ledge, but I learned that I could jump up onto it and see what was going on outside the house without even needing to go out there. It quickly became my favorite place to be, especially when the giants left me alone in the house. I could lie up there and watch for the car to come home.
The car! Boy, was it letting the cat out of the bag to even mention the car around me! Wait, did someone say, “cat?” Grr! Where’s that cat? Someone said something about a cat. Where is that—oh. Sorry, I got distracted again. What I was talking about? Oh yes, the car. Riding in the car was so much fun. I could see so many sights, smell so many smells! There was only one word that got my tail wagging more than the word “car,” and that was the word “Huck.” “Huck” meant that I not only got to ride in the car, but also go to this beautiful, wide-open space with a pond and a stream and a forest of trees. Whenever I was at Huck, it was like I had two tails. Normally when they took me outside, the giants would attach me to one of them (I don’t know why, maybe they thought they’d get lost without me). However, at Huck, there were no strings on me. I could romp and play wherever I liked. I always stayed within earshot, of course—just in case they were still worried about getting lost. But since they never did, I don’t know why they were so concerned.
Every year, the giants would leave me alone with one of the older giants. The younger giants called her, “Grandma.” I don’t know where the others went, but sometimes they’d be gone for a week, other times they’d be gone for months. While they were gone, Grandma would teach me how to do silly things she called, “tricks.” She had me rolling over and jumping through hoops and all sorts of unnatural things. As long as I got a treat, anything she asked me to do, I did. But nothing made me happier than seeing the rest of the giants return. No matter how long they were gone, they’d always come back, and I’d always be happy to see them. I’d “put on the dog” for them. My tail would wag, my feet would dance, my whole body would wiggle and shake as I greeted them when they returned. Now that was a trick that Grandma could never teach me. I did it all on my own: no treats required. The attention was its own treat.
One day, Chloe brought home a couple of small, furry animals. At first, I thought they were puppies that needed my care. Occasionally, one of them would get out of the cage they were kept in. If I found one, I would gently pick it up and play with it. But as the months went on, they didn’t get bigger. They just wouldn’t grow up. And yet they kept multiplying. I began to wonder if these weren’t puppies, but rather food. After all, the giants never referred to them as dogs or puppies. They called them a funny word: hamsters. The next time one got out, I bit down on it and drew blood. It got away from me and found a place to hide. I began to feel a little guilty, so I just stood there and stared at it. Eventually, it stopped moving. One of the giants found me staring at the hamster and gave me a firm, “No!” as the hamster was taken away. I never saw that hamster again. One by one, all the other hamsters disappeared. I never figured out what happened to them, but many of the trips the giants took to Huck included the giants digging a hole and putting a small box inside. I thought digging holes was fun. I sometimes helped, even though the giants didn’t appreciate it. You try to be helpful, and they tell you to go away? What a dog’s life I live.
Years after the hamsters, the “Mom” giant came home with a box that peeped, reminding me of the chew toys I played with as a puppy. I just had to look inside and see what was making that noise. I sniffed the box. It smelled just like chicken! I wagged my tail and followed Mom as she took the box into a room, but she went inside and closed the door on me. The giants all went out of their way to keep me out the room where they kept the box. Day and night I heard the peeping and squeaking, and I knew I needed to get in there and investigate.
One day, I saw that the door to the room with the box was open. This was my chance! I sneaked inside and sniffed around. I could see the box plainly, and there—on the ground! One of the peeping things was out of the box! I ran towards it and grabbed it. It tasted like chicken! It started peeping louder, causing the creatures in the box to squeak in alarm. This brought Jesse in. I looked up at him and wagged my tail. He didn’t seem very amused.
“Chloe!” Jesse called. “Come quick! Blondie got one of our chicks!”
Soon, the room was full of giants, and I was told to drop the chick and leave the room. I obeyed. That was the last time I saw the chicks before they became chickens. They were released into a fenced-in area that I normally couldn’t get into. One of the chickens smelled like a male. It grew bigger than the others, and liked to make loud noises at all hours of the day. I managed to get into the fenced-in area once, but that big male chicken smacked me on the head with the sharp object on his head. Yi-ique! That hurt! I hate to admit this, but I ran out of there as fast as I could with my tail between my legs. I may have even wet my tail a little. Needless to say, I kept my distance from the chickens after that.
The chickens came and went, but I stayed on. As the years went by, my status as runt of the litter began to show. I was no longer able to jump up onto the couch by myself. My legs hurt, and I’d sometimes limp for a little while after jumping down. The giants set up a stool to help me jump up. I quickly learned to use the stool, even though it was more fun to put on my best puppy face until someone picked me up.
As time went on, I began to have trouble breathing. Every once in a while, I felt wind coming from inside my body that wanted to escape through my nose, forcing me to let it out—ah-chee!
The giants took me to my least favorite place in the world: The vet’s office. I hated the vet. She took me away from my giants and poked me. I kept trying to bark at and bite her to let her know I didn’t like what she was doing, but she just put a muzzle around my face to keep me from protecting myself. After the vet visit, the giants began to give me some of the biggest treats I’d ever seen. They even had something hard and crunchy inside. I enjoyed these treats and even reminded my giants to give them to me. My breathing became easier. I had less wind inside me trying to escape. But as the months and years went by, my breathing became difficult again.
I lay on my favorite corner of the couch, half a sleep. I snapped awake when I heard a sound I’d recognize anywhere: the sound of the family car rolling into the driveway. My ears perked up. My chest hurt and my legs were sore, but my tail could still wag. The door opened, and Chloe walked into the house. I lifted my head and put my ears back excitedly, wagging my tail slowly, but happily. Chloe greeted me by my name several times and she approached me to stroke me behind my ears and near my tail, which began to wag faster. I slowly rolled over so she could stroke my belly. I was a happy dog, blissfully unaware that in a few weeks, I would be joining the chickens and the hamsters.
******
Pain. Pain in my chest. Pain in my nose. I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to cuddle with someone. I jumped off the bed to find Chloe and ask her to pick me up. I looked up at her and wagged my tail, whimpering quietly. It wasn’t long before she picked me up and put me on her lap. I licked her finger and lay down, in pain, but content.
I was feeling fine yesterday. I went to the vet’s office and pranced around the room, growling at the scent of another dog outside the door. The vet poked me again and I got to ride home in the car. Today, however, everything was different. The pain increased. I started to whimper loudly on Chloe’s lap, looking her in the eye, hoping she could do something to relieve my pain.
Misunderstanding me, Chloe put me down. My vision got hazy as I went to find Grandma. She soon found me and held me as I started to lose control of my body. My head drooped. Grandma took me back to the room where Chloe and Mommy were. Chloe saw my condition and approached me in alarm. Grandma sat down and Chloe knelt beside us and cradled my head. I felt wind and water escape through my mouth again. I faintly smelled Daddy and Jesse at the other end of the house. I was in pain, but I was at my home that I had tried to protect all my life. I was happy, knowing that I was surrounded by the giants that loved me and that I loved in return.
I lay there, panting for breath as my life flashed before my eyes. It had been a dog’s life, but it had been a good life. I faintly saw some water dripping from Chloe’s eyes that I’d seen when I sensed she was particularly sad. I wanted to wag my tail, to let her know that everything would be all right, but for once, my tail wouldn’t move. I wanted to look her in the eyes, but my whole body was limp. The scent of Chloe, Grandma, Mommy, Daddy and Jesse faded. The pain died away as the sights, sounds, and smells of the world died, too.
******
I felt my paws gently touch the ground as a female giant carried me out of a huge car and put me down. I stood on my own four feet again for the first time in what seemed like hours. Shivering with fear and anticipation, I looked around. I cautiously walked over to the grass. I took a few sniffs, then squatted. Ahh! That felt good. I’d been holding it in since I left. I’d barely finished relieving myself before two smaller giants, one a boy and one a girl, ran excitedly out the door. They surrounded me and both of them started to pet me at once. I wasn’t sure what to do with all this attention. Three long months with my mother hadn’t prepared me for any of this! Could I just go home now?
“Yes! I finally have a dog!” The girl giant exclaimed, squatting down to get closer to my height. “What’s its name? Is it a boy or a girl? What kind of dog is it?”
“Slow down, Chloe,” The driver, who I guessed was the child’s father,
laughed. “It’s not just your dog. Her name is Blondie. She’s a Chihuahua.”
“Hi, Blondie!” Chloe said, putting my head in her hands and then reaching behind my ears to stroke my head.
“How ya’ doin’ Blondie? You’re such a good dog! Good dog! You’re so cute! Aren’tcha Blondie-girl?”
As if it had a mind of its own, my little tail began vigorously wagging like a pendulum on steroids. My shivering subsided slightly as the younger boy struggled to find space to stroke someplace on my small body. Suddenly, I felt my paws leave the ground again, as Chloe picked me up and held me to her chest.
“You and I are going to be best friends forever!” Chloe said, rubbing the top of my head with her chin. I was liking this “Chloe” more and more. I reached my head up to lick her humungous face. She squirmed.
“Hey!” The smallest giant, who I later learned was Chloe’s little brother, exclaimed. “Let me have a turn!”
“Chloe,” Mommy said. “Let Jesse hold the dog.”
I felt myself being squeezed as Chloe held me closer to her chest. The girl looked up at Daddy, betrayed. “I’m the one that’s been asking for a dog. Besides, Jesse’s only five—he might hurt her.”
“I don’t see the problem, Chloe,” Daddy said, “I was five when my parents got me my first dog.”
“And so you waited until I was nine?” Chloe retorted.
“And so we waited until Jesse was five.” Daddy replied calmly.
“I guess there are perks and downfalls to being an older sibling,” Chloe said sourly. She gently handed me to Jesse, who wasn’t exactly sure how to hold me properly. I soon found myself back on the ground. I wasn’t sure what was going on. When was I going back home?
Chloe picked me up again and carried me into the house. She put me down again on the floor. I didn’t understand what was going on, but I followed Chloe around the house as she made funny noises that somehow made me attracted to her. She rubbed me behind my ears and made more strange sounds. Pretty soon, I wasn’t sure whether I was wagging my tail, or my tail was wagging me.
As days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months, I grew into an adult dog. I learned to consider this place my home: and I knew I had to protect it. Intruders would come to the house, and I’d try to tell them to leave, but the giants would just lock me up in a room. They wouldn’t let me attack those intruders that they called “friends.” I was only trying to protect them. Why wouldn’t they let me do my job? Ruff! Ruff! Intruder Alert! Intruder—sorry, I get sidetracked easily. It was nothing. I thought I heard someone knocking at the door. It was just Chloe seeing if Jesse was out of the bathroom yet. Sigh. Oh bummer. Ah well, let’s get back to the story.
The giants that I lived with weren’t always that bad. Most of them loved to play with me, and sometimes, other dogs would come visit. At first, I tried to get them to leave, but after a while, I started to tolerate these visiting dogs. Just as long as the dog left after a week or two.
The giants had this large ledge that they loved to sit in. The ledge was soft and cushy, and I loved to jump up onto it; especially when one of the giants was sitting on the ledge. They would pet me and hug me, and I’d crawl onto their lap and hot diggity dog! It was a dog’s life. It wasn’t long before the giants taught me that that ledge was called the “couch.” They even started calling me, “couch potato.” I didn’t mind what they called me as long as they gave me attention—and fed me.
Soon I learned that the couch-ledge had a higher ledge. The giants usually leaned against this ledge, but I learned that I could jump up onto it and see what was going on outside the house without even needing to go out there. It quickly became my favorite place to be, especially when the giants left me alone in the house. I could lie up there and watch for the car to come home.
The car! Boy, was it letting the cat out of the bag to even mention the car around me! Wait, did someone say, “cat?” Grr! Where’s that cat? Someone said something about a cat. Where is that—oh. Sorry, I got distracted again. What I was talking about? Oh yes, the car. Riding in the car was so much fun. I could see so many sights, smell so many smells! There was only one word that got my tail wagging more than the word “car,” and that was the word “Huck.” “Huck” meant that I not only got to ride in the car, but also go to this beautiful, wide-open space with a pond and a stream and a forest of trees. Whenever I was at Huck, it was like I had two tails. Normally when they took me outside, the giants would attach me to one of them (I don’t know why, maybe they thought they’d get lost without me). However, at Huck, there were no strings on me. I could romp and play wherever I liked. I always stayed within earshot, of course—just in case they were still worried about getting lost. But since they never did, I don’t know why they were so concerned.
Every year, the giants would leave me alone with one of the older giants. The younger giants called her, “Grandma.” I don’t know where the others went, but sometimes they’d be gone for a week, other times they’d be gone for months. While they were gone, Grandma would teach me how to do silly things she called, “tricks.” She had me rolling over and jumping through hoops and all sorts of unnatural things. As long as I got a treat, anything she asked me to do, I did. But nothing made me happier than seeing the rest of the giants return. No matter how long they were gone, they’d always come back, and I’d always be happy to see them. I’d “put on the dog” for them. My tail would wag, my feet would dance, my whole body would wiggle and shake as I greeted them when they returned. Now that was a trick that Grandma could never teach me. I did it all on my own: no treats required. The attention was its own treat.
One day, Chloe brought home a couple of small, furry animals. At first, I thought they were puppies that needed my care. Occasionally, one of them would get out of the cage they were kept in. If I found one, I would gently pick it up and play with it. But as the months went on, they didn’t get bigger. They just wouldn’t grow up. And yet they kept multiplying. I began to wonder if these weren’t puppies, but rather food. After all, the giants never referred to them as dogs or puppies. They called them a funny word: hamsters. The next time one got out, I bit down on it and drew blood. It got away from me and found a place to hide. I began to feel a little guilty, so I just stood there and stared at it. Eventually, it stopped moving. One of the giants found me staring at the hamster and gave me a firm, “No!” as the hamster was taken away. I never saw that hamster again. One by one, all the other hamsters disappeared. I never figured out what happened to them, but many of the trips the giants took to Huck included the giants digging a hole and putting a small box inside. I thought digging holes was fun. I sometimes helped, even though the giants didn’t appreciate it. You try to be helpful, and they tell you to go away? What a dog’s life I live.
Years after the hamsters, the “Mom” giant came home with a box that peeped, reminding me of the chew toys I played with as a puppy. I just had to look inside and see what was making that noise. I sniffed the box. It smelled just like chicken! I wagged my tail and followed Mom as she took the box into a room, but she went inside and closed the door on me. The giants all went out of their way to keep me out the room where they kept the box. Day and night I heard the peeping and squeaking, and I knew I needed to get in there and investigate.
One day, I saw that the door to the room with the box was open. This was my chance! I sneaked inside and sniffed around. I could see the box plainly, and there—on the ground! One of the peeping things was out of the box! I ran towards it and grabbed it. It tasted like chicken! It started peeping louder, causing the creatures in the box to squeak in alarm. This brought Jesse in. I looked up at him and wagged my tail. He didn’t seem very amused.
“Chloe!” Jesse called. “Come quick! Blondie got one of our chicks!”
Soon, the room was full of giants, and I was told to drop the chick and leave the room. I obeyed. That was the last time I saw the chicks before they became chickens. They were released into a fenced-in area that I normally couldn’t get into. One of the chickens smelled like a male. It grew bigger than the others, and liked to make loud noises at all hours of the day. I managed to get into the fenced-in area once, but that big male chicken smacked me on the head with the sharp object on his head. Yi-ique! That hurt! I hate to admit this, but I ran out of there as fast as I could with my tail between my legs. I may have even wet my tail a little. Needless to say, I kept my distance from the chickens after that.
The chickens came and went, but I stayed on. As the years went by, my status as runt of the litter began to show. I was no longer able to jump up onto the couch by myself. My legs hurt, and I’d sometimes limp for a little while after jumping down. The giants set up a stool to help me jump up. I quickly learned to use the stool, even though it was more fun to put on my best puppy face until someone picked me up.
As time went on, I began to have trouble breathing. Every once in a while, I felt wind coming from inside my body that wanted to escape through my nose, forcing me to let it out—ah-chee!
The giants took me to my least favorite place in the world: The vet’s office. I hated the vet. She took me away from my giants and poked me. I kept trying to bark at and bite her to let her know I didn’t like what she was doing, but she just put a muzzle around my face to keep me from protecting myself. After the vet visit, the giants began to give me some of the biggest treats I’d ever seen. They even had something hard and crunchy inside. I enjoyed these treats and even reminded my giants to give them to me. My breathing became easier. I had less wind inside me trying to escape. But as the months and years went by, my breathing became difficult again.
I lay on my favorite corner of the couch, half a sleep. I snapped awake when I heard a sound I’d recognize anywhere: the sound of the family car rolling into the driveway. My ears perked up. My chest hurt and my legs were sore, but my tail could still wag. The door opened, and Chloe walked into the house. I lifted my head and put my ears back excitedly, wagging my tail slowly, but happily. Chloe greeted me by my name several times and she approached me to stroke me behind my ears and near my tail, which began to wag faster. I slowly rolled over so she could stroke my belly. I was a happy dog, blissfully unaware that in a few weeks, I would be joining the chickens and the hamsters.
******
Pain. Pain in my chest. Pain in my nose. I couldn’t breathe. I wanted to cuddle with someone. I jumped off the bed to find Chloe and ask her to pick me up. I looked up at her and wagged my tail, whimpering quietly. It wasn’t long before she picked me up and put me on her lap. I licked her finger and lay down, in pain, but content.
I was feeling fine yesterday. I went to the vet’s office and pranced around the room, growling at the scent of another dog outside the door. The vet poked me again and I got to ride home in the car. Today, however, everything was different. The pain increased. I started to whimper loudly on Chloe’s lap, looking her in the eye, hoping she could do something to relieve my pain.
Misunderstanding me, Chloe put me down. My vision got hazy as I went to find Grandma. She soon found me and held me as I started to lose control of my body. My head drooped. Grandma took me back to the room where Chloe and Mommy were. Chloe saw my condition and approached me in alarm. Grandma sat down and Chloe knelt beside us and cradled my head. I felt wind and water escape through my mouth again. I faintly smelled Daddy and Jesse at the other end of the house. I was in pain, but I was at my home that I had tried to protect all my life. I was happy, knowing that I was surrounded by the giants that loved me and that I loved in return.
I lay there, panting for breath as my life flashed before my eyes. It had been a dog’s life, but it had been a good life. I faintly saw some water dripping from Chloe’s eyes that I’d seen when I sensed she was particularly sad. I wanted to wag my tail, to let her know that everything would be all right, but for once, my tail wouldn’t move. I wanted to look her in the eyes, but my whole body was limp. The scent of Chloe, Grandma, Mommy, Daddy and Jesse faded. The pain died away as the sights, sounds, and smells of the world died, too.
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