Pupdate
I’m a Seeing Eye puppy sponsor–you sign on for a puppy and they just keep rolling you over, unless you stop them. One puppy grows up and goes off to Seeing Eye college* and you get a postcard through the mail slot of the next one. It’s addictive. Anyway, they send you cosy little flyers about ‘your’ puppy’s progress. They’re called Pupdates.
So, a pupdate. 
I’ve gone round the last two Fridays to see Daisy and the ankle-biter, brandishing my camera.
He’s so cute it’s probably illegal and I love him to pieces . . . although at the same time I have done the puppy thing quite recently enough, thank you very much, and don’t in the least long to be going through it again.
There’s also nothing better for making your own heart go pittypat than to indulge in a wicked flirtation with a miniature tyrant–you never saw a puppy so invested in the awareness that he rules: my guys used to suffer occasional doubts, although that’s probably the difference between spaniel personality and sighthound–and then come home to a pair of little pointed faces with flattened ears and lashing tails who are thrilled to see you.**
But the hellhounds also know they rule, in their slightly-less-likely-to-cause-blood-loss*** way. They are very interested in the smell of the ankle-biter on me, but this obviously causes them no distress of mind or loss of confidence whatsoever. Dog slavish adoration is very restful.
* * *
* I’d always wondered how much of the stuff they send out to us hoi polloi with the chequebooks was mocked up for the purpose–the stand-in, the poster puppy for all the puppies we are sending our pennies in for. And then one of the poster puppies failed–wasn’t going to make a Seeing Eye dog and got rehomed. Whereupon my respect for the system went up a few points. The puppy in question, by the way, had been my favourite thus far. Good thing I’m not picking ‘em.
** Sigh. If only we could get their digestion sorted out.
*** I missed most of this by having two puppies. Of course Chaos has grown up to be a forearm-gnawer, and Darkness likes to scale you like a rock face. And a Cocker spaniel is never going to grow up to be able to hit 40 mph within the span of his 26 foot extending lead, and yank you into orbit.
* * *
. . . Last time Daisy came to visit me, she brought roses.
comments
Please join the discussion at Robin McKinley's Web Forum.