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Animal
House Folly
Farm Blog
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I looked at the small dark-brown bundle squirming in my hand and couldn’t believe my luck. Since the death of my very first dog seven months before I had tried to find another Sheltie but all my efforts had been unsuccessful. I had put my name down with this particular breeder and waited excitedly for a litter due at Christmas but they had all died at birth. However she had put me at the top of her list for the next batch due in May and here I was at last with a three week old puppy cupped against me. “Do you want to feed him?” The breeder handed me a moist spoonful of mince which I gingerly picked up and held before him. Without even hesitating the voracious little animal gobbled it down. In fact he would have carried on eating all day if the breeder hadn’t scooped him up and put him back with his mother. Well I figured, he was a Taurean and they do enjoy their food! I had to wait another five weeks but finally the big day arrived and my father and I drove out into the country to collect my new puppy. As usual when we arrived at the property we were greeted by ten Shelties of assorted colours going ballistic, barking and running around in circles. I heard the screen door of the house open and the breeder walked out carrying a small golden and white fluffy ball. I couldn’t believe my eyes as the dark little mound of just a few weeks ago had grown into a delightful fox-like creature. I gathered him up along with a bag of his favourite dog food and got in the car. As I closed the door he began to yelping, upset at leaving his home. Driving away I looked back to see the breeder walking up her driveway crying. I was overcome with a deep sense of guilt but we weren’t even a mile down the road before the puppy stopped crying, curling up on my knee asleep. On arriving at his new home he marched around as if he owned the joint. I took out my camera and photographed him. As it turned out these were to be the only baby photos I would ever manage to take, later efforts consisting of a small golden blur racing past in search of mischief. Now for a name. Every time I looked at him I thought
he needed a short soft name so I called him Mishka. This was shortened to
Mish on occasion and he also acquired various other nicknames depending on
what he’d just done. He was my first puppy as Katrina (my previous
Shetland Sheepdog) had been eighteen months old when I bought her with a
vast array of bad habits already deeply ingrained into her psyche. I had
no idea what to expect with this new addition. I had been warned that he wouldn’t sleep at all that first night so was preparing myself as I tucked him into his bed with his toys. The yelped as if the world was coming to an end but after half an hour all went quiet. In the morning when I opened the kitchen door a little pointy face peeked over the boxes at me excitedly wagging his tail. I took him outside and put him on the lawn but he just spent ten minutes sniffing the grass. The breeder had begun paper-training him and sure enough soon as I returned him to the kitchen he marched over to a copy of the Tribune, squatted down and with a beatific expression on his face, did a pretty good imitation of Niagara Falls. Before his arrival I used to kneel on the floor to read the evening paper. However I soon developed my speed-reading skills when Mish marched over with a look of determination on his face. It didn’t matter how many times I took him outside, after his nap, after each meal, after his evening TV watching, he still would hold on until he returned inside. Newspapers were definitely for widdling on. The breeder had told me that he would need a great deal of sleep, that he would nap for two hours and then wake up ready for action for a short time before he needed more rest. Yeah right! In reality he would have two hours of mad dashing about interrupted by five minutes of collapse in order to refuel himself for the next onslaught. I would put him down for his nap and shut the kitchen door, sneaking up to the other end of the house so that I wouldn’t spoil his “time out”. After half an hour of complete silence I would sneak a peek only to find him sitting up in bed with his tail wagging as if to say “OK done that. What’s next?” Then there was the chewing. Now I had been told that puppies enjoy testing their little mouths on anything so I was expecting my shoes to take a beating. But no…. the carpet was the first victim with a hole the size of a saucer appearing in the middle of the family room. As it was winter I would take Mishka outside onto our front veranda (the house being a ninety year old Victorian villa) so he could indulge in some serious sunbathing. That’s when he began to eat the veranda. However his piece de resistánce was the kitchen. Early one morning after smugly congratulating myself on what a quiet well-behaved puppy I had I opened the door to discover he had torn large strips of wallpaper from the walls. Horror! One, it was my parent’s house, and two, they were in the middle of trying to sell it. I won’t repeat what my father said when he saw the damage. Then there was his obsession with water. Whereas Katrina had hated going outside in the rain and would sit with an expression of “Why are you trying to kill me?” on her face while having a bath, Mish would run out and open his mouth to the skies in order to catch raindrops. Puddles were for jumping in, his water pot was for carrying around, and the little fishpond in the middle of the lawn became permanently muddied from where he would stand in it, splashing his paw into the water. I began taking him for a walk around the four acres of my parent’s property every afternoon. Then one day a miracle happened. After five months of intensive newspaper watering we were walking past a particularly beautiful Gleditisia tree when he stopped, sniffed and lifted his leg. To this day I still wonder what the neighbours must have thought when I began cheering. It was shortly after this wondrous event that my parents sold their house and moved to town. I hadn’t yet found a rural property to rent so had to go into temporary accommodation and put all my animals into boarding facilities. Mishka returned to his breeder for the eight and a half months it took for me to find us all a home. Each month I would visit him and he would become so
excited to see me, jumping up and down on the spot. When I left he would
run ahead of me to the gate as if to say, “OK let’s go” and I would
have to leave him behind, his little pointy face peering sadly out from
behind the gate. I felt as if a small piece of my heart was chipping off
and remaining behind every time I left him. Finally in the spring of 1998 I rented a cottage on a cattle and sheep farm and called his breeder to tell her he was coming home. Mishka didn’t need any second telling but jumped in the car. I kept turning to look at him all the way home as he gazed in wonder while we drove past paddocks filled with so many animals. That night he slept in my room and from that time to this he has followed me round like…. well like a dog actually. Now I look back at those early days with wry affection. The puddles, the things that went squelch in the night, the teething, the howling (oh no, sorry that was me), the doing-disgusting-things-to-visitor’s-legs, all fade into memory. What remains are the bright brown eyes, the little tail that nearly wagged itself off whenever I appeared, the way I was the centre of his existence. And the best part of puppy love? It never ends. ©Jen Longshaw 2000-2006 Please do not copy in any manner, print or electronic,
without permission from the author.
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