Diary of a Lhasa Apso puppy – Part 6
Friday 17th March
The world has suddenly got a great deal bigger. After having my final vaccinations I’m now able to leave the confines of 19 Norwich Road and go exploring with Mum and Dad. Apparently this is called ‘walkies’ and apart from being restricted by a lead and harness, I like walkies very much. There’s so much to sniff and I even found a small stick on my first outing. However, on my second walkies I encountered a train at the railway station where me and Dad had gone to wave Mum off. Everything was fine until the train brakes made a very loud noise and I asked Dad to pick me up after that, just so I could comfort him.
I didn’t shake uncontrollably at all.
Well, maybe just a little bit, but I did have enough energy left for a game of ball when I got home.
Saturday 18th
There’s one thing I find confusing and a downright sneaky about my cat brother Toby. Tail wagging means happy! Everyone knows that, but not with Toby… oh no. When he thrashes his tail about it’s usually the precursor for something highly unpleasant. Many a time I’ve misread his falsely advertised happiness, bounded up for a sniff and got a smack in the face, so I’ve had enough. And while we’re at it, let’s not forget that he completely took over my previous dog blog with that ridiculous interview with Dad. So I’ve decided the pecking order round here needs shifting, and step one is the installation of a guard dog at the back door. Me! OK, so he walked straight past with his tail in the air, but I will work on being more assertive to show Toby who’s the boss around here.
Sunday 19th
I’ve been to Tom and Beth’s house today, and it was brilliant because I’ve got a new best friend – their dog, Bruno! It was a little fraught to start with. Bruno did some growling and I did some hiding behind Beth, but then Bruno sniffed my willy. I was rather shocked by this because I am more used to being the sniffer than the sniffee.
However, Bruno seemed to like me after that so we did some chasing, and then some jumping on each other, followed by loads more chasing. After a while Bruno needed a knap so I was confined to another room while he recovered from a two hour ‘puppy-in-his-face’ experience, and then it all kicked off again. Apparently when we left to go home Bruno cried for a while at the front door, and I had the best night sleep ever. Can’t wait to see my best friend again.
Monday 20th
Been chilling in Toby’s bed. Just chilling – nothing else to say. No nibbling of any kind.
Toby went to sleep in his bed later on and I couldn’t help noticing that some damage of a nibbling kind had occurred. Toby must have done it. It definitely wasn’t me, OK!
Tuesday 21st
I have loads of toys of all types – balls, bits of rope, squeaky things and the loves of my life, cuddly Mr Fox and Mrs Bunny, who I play with in a very special way. However I have decided to expand my collection by improvising with some items that are not specifically dog toys. The first is a really chewable washing machine liquid dispenser and the second is a plastic ball thrower, which makes a great stick. I like to carry the ball thrower around but haven’t quite worked out that I’m wider than usual when running between things, which means I crash about the place quite a lot.
Wednesday 22nd
Today has been unexpectedly messy. I was half way through doing a poo when a noise from next door distracted me. I went to investigate and in the process forgot what I’d been doing. Everything would have been fine if I hadn’t sat down and that’s when it all ended badly. I tried to rectify the situation by dragging my bum along the patio but that only made things worse, so Mum scooped me up and gave me an unscheduled bath. The water running down the plug hole was extremely brown.
Thursday 23rd
Dad has a silver coloured metal case with a handle. A long and mysterious case I’ve often seen him leaving the house with it, only to return a couple of hours later either happy or miserable, muttering about the other bloke having the ‘run of the balls.’ All very confusing. But today I got to see what was inside the case. I love a stick, but inside Dad’s case live the sticks of my dreams. The longest is a perfectly smooth tapered stick with a blue chalky bit of leather on the thinnest end and dark inlayed triangular shapes. Next to that is a longer stick and it looks like these two sticks might fit together to make an even longer one. Stick perfection. There are two other sticks – a short fat stick and a longer but equally fat one and both of these look like they might make the first two bits of stick even longer, to make a mega-stick. These sticks are Dad’s snooker sticks and I long to have them for my very own; to revel in their smooth perfection and then to bite and nibble them into shapes of my own knobbly design. So far I’ve only been permitted a quick sniff, but I will hatch a plan – Dad’s snooker sticks will one day be mine!
Friday 24th
I’m a pretty smart puppy but I may not yet be fully tech-savvy. Mum and Dad both carry tiny televisions in their pocket which they occasionally talk at. Today Mum let me see the tiny TV screen and that’s when I saw two of my most favourite people in the whole world. It was my human brother, Tom and his girlfriend, Beth, and they were saying my name. I love Beth because she gives me loads of training treats and Tom lets me snuffle his beard, which sometimes contains bit of his lunch, but the tiny Tom and Beth in Mum’s tiny TV didn’t smell right, even though I wagged my tail furiously. I checked round the back of the tiny TV but they were not there and they weren't anywhere else in the house either, not even under the sofa. This was all very confusing and somewhat distressing for my small puppy brain.
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See you soon.
Love, Robin