It’s not that I’m fixated on the new puppy as a blog topic. But I figure a pup’s time as a pup is short, so you chronicle what you can during those brief months.
Let’s start with the back yard. I just posted to Facebook the assortment of treasures she’d unearthed the prior six days: various sticks, limbs and logs; two pieces of siding from the house; two Diet Coke cans, crunched to an inch long; a couple of putrid potatoes from the mulch pile; two heavy Michigan stones; three pieces of charcoal, Kingsford's finest; two big Nerf balls reduced to golf-ball size; two clay pots; one brick; a landscape light ripped from the ground; and half of a giant sea shell.
Oh, and my barbecue brush.
As I also noted, she has dug a half-dozen new holes for storage. Convenient, though she'll never use them.
This is our routine, Nellie's and mine. Sunday through Friday, she gathers her inventory like a purposeful polar bear and stacks it in the middle of the back yard. On Saturday, I rake it all up and throw most of it away. (The brush stays ... I’m not bothered much by dog germs.) By Sunday, she’s started anew.
Where she finds these gifts I don’t know. The yard is enclosed, so you'd think at some point supply would suffer from demand.
Much of her work occurs in the black of night. Cindy and I both work day jobs; Cindy has a shorter work-week than I do, but most weekdays, Nellie and Linus are stuck in the house. Nellie is still in a crate, though soon she’ll need to duck to enter.
We do routinely take them for walks in the evening. But then we let them out the back. Linus barks a bit to reinforce his place in the animal kingdom; Nellie is silent. More on that in a minute.
But she’s on the move, surely. In fact, to let Nellie inside after a night of exploring is what Gump remembered about a box of chocolates – you don't know what you're going to get.
Two nights ago, Nellie came to the door with dirt-caked back legs, the dirt up to her hips. But the mess was on the back of the back legs, not the front.
How could that happen? What manner of digging would attach dirt on the back but not the front?
Surely, she must have jumped into my garden bed, stood straight up against the fence and moon-walked in place to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”
(It was a moon-lit night.)
Last night she sauntered up with dirt on her front legs. But this time, on the front of her front legs, not the back.
Had she been digging a traditional hole, the opposite would have been true. So somehow she found reason to kneel in mud. Why? Bowing down to the rabbits?
On other nights she walks in with leaf bits in the oddest places … the top of her head, on the tip of her tail, under her belly, up and down all four legs, on her eyelids, even under her collar. Like pepper seasoning on a Hostess Sno Ball.
We expect that, of course. Her white fur is a dust mop, and she does like to roll. So we have a dog brush at the back door to keep leaves inside to a minimum.
Still, I look out the back and see there really aren’t that many leaves out there. It’s like metal flakes to a magnet, I suppose. She steps out and the tiniest leaves gather round to greet her.
There are other, odder things.
We’d been told that Great Pyrenees are barkers. Not this one, or at least not yet. I’ve heard her bark exactly two times. The first was in her sleep, but then it was more of a muffled “Eemmp, eemmp.” Like the sound Beaker the Muppet makes.
The second was a night a couple of weeks back, just as we were getting to bed. Nellie was still down the dark hall.
“WOOF!!”
It was a mighty bark … so forceful and unexpected that I thought it came from a toothy beast on the street.
I turned down the hall in search of Nellie. She sat with her back to me, at the top of the short stairs, looking through the kitchen and at the window beyond. About 50 feet of distance or so.
There, reflected in the window, was Nellie at the top of the stairs. Guardian Nellie had woofed at intruder Nellie.
Good dog! Now to have some fun with that large mirror in the basement.
Other than that, she’s been mute … a white-fluffed Marcel Marceau. (To be fair, Cindy says she’s heard a bark or two. But still, four barks in five months? I’ve barked more.)
Two other points of weirdness:
- She has a habit of sitting and licking her paws, which is not unusual. But then she'll stop short halfway up her paw, her tongue still showing, and shift her big eyes slightly to stare at you. Everything frozen ... her head ... her eyes ... her tongue ... for a good 15 seconds ... before she resumes.
- Riley used to wear a Christmas collar with Christmas bells during the holidays. Linus has one, too. This year we left Riley's collar hanging on the back door knob. Now Nellie will nudge it when she wants to go outside. "Ring, ring!" We said, "Oh Nellie, how cute!" "Ring, ring!" We said, "Oh Nellie, how smart!" "Ring, ring!" Soon we said, "Oh Nellie, hold on a minute." "Ring, ring!" Now we say, "Good gawd, dog, you just went out!" But we jump up anyway.
Who is Pavlov's dog now?
And the oddest thing still … this 60-pound soon-to-be giant continues to defy gravity. I’ve mentioned there must be helium inside. But that doesn’t do the phenomenon justice.
No, it’s like she can dance on clouds, soar with the butterflies. Even when she walks, the rear half of her seems detached and off the ground, gently swaying like the Cowardly Lion’s wayward tail.
Better yet, imagine the ballerina hippos of Fantasia ... definitely all hips ... flitting on their toes.
So it was no surprise this morning when Nellie the puppy woke me by deftly leaping the 4 feet onto the bed.
She walked over, her massive head – yes, already massive – towering over me. She gently sniffed my face, then put her 6-inch-round paw lightly onto my chest.
As if to say, “Time to get up, old man. Tidy up the backyard. There’s new treasure out there. You need to make way.”
 |
| Nel and her stuff. |
Let’s start with the back yard. I just posted to Facebook the assortment of treasures she’d unearthed the prior six days: various sticks, limbs and logs; two pieces of siding from the house; two Diet Coke cans, crunched to an inch long; a couple of putrid potatoes from the mulch pile; two heavy Michigan stones; three pieces of charcoal, Kingsford's finest; two big Nerf balls reduced to golf-ball size; two clay pots; one brick; a landscape light ripped from the ground; and half of a giant sea shell.
Oh, and my barbecue brush.
As I also noted, she has dug a half-dozen new holes for storage. Convenient, though she'll never use them.
This is our routine, Nellie's and mine. Sunday through Friday, she gathers her inventory like a purposeful polar bear and stacks it in the middle of the back yard. On Saturday, I rake it all up and throw most of it away. (The brush stays ... I’m not bothered much by dog germs.) By Sunday, she’s started anew.
Where she finds these gifts I don’t know. The yard is enclosed, so you'd think at some point supply would suffer from demand.
Much of her work occurs in the black of night. Cindy and I both work day jobs; Cindy has a shorter work-week than I do, but most weekdays, Nellie and Linus are stuck in the house. Nellie is still in a crate, though soon she’ll need to duck to enter.
We do routinely take them for walks in the evening. But then we let them out the back. Linus barks a bit to reinforce his place in the animal kingdom; Nellie is silent. More on that in a minute.
But she’s on the move, surely. In fact, to let Nellie inside after a night of exploring is what Gump remembered about a box of chocolates – you don't know what you're going to get.
Two nights ago, Nellie came to the door with dirt-caked back legs, the dirt up to her hips. But the mess was on the back of the back legs, not the front.
How could that happen? What manner of digging would attach dirt on the back but not the front?
Surely, she must have jumped into my garden bed, stood straight up against the fence and moon-walked in place to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”
(It was a moon-lit night.)
Last night she sauntered up with dirt on her front legs. But this time, on the front of her front legs, not the back.
Had she been digging a traditional hole, the opposite would have been true. So somehow she found reason to kneel in mud. Why? Bowing down to the rabbits?
 |
| Nel and her brush. |
We expect that, of course. Her white fur is a dust mop, and she does like to roll. So we have a dog brush at the back door to keep leaves inside to a minimum.
Still, I look out the back and see there really aren’t that many leaves out there. It’s like metal flakes to a magnet, I suppose. She steps out and the tiniest leaves gather round to greet her.
There are other, odder things.
We’d been told that Great Pyrenees are barkers. Not this one, or at least not yet. I’ve heard her bark exactly two times. The first was in her sleep, but then it was more of a muffled “Eemmp, eemmp.” Like the sound Beaker the Muppet makes.
The second was a night a couple of weeks back, just as we were getting to bed. Nellie was still down the dark hall.
“WOOF!!”
It was a mighty bark … so forceful and unexpected that I thought it came from a toothy beast on the street.
I turned down the hall in search of Nellie. She sat with her back to me, at the top of the short stairs, looking through the kitchen and at the window beyond. About 50 feet of distance or so.
There, reflected in the window, was Nellie at the top of the stairs. Guardian Nellie had woofed at intruder Nellie.
Good dog! Now to have some fun with that large mirror in the basement.
Other than that, she’s been mute … a white-fluffed Marcel Marceau. (To be fair, Cindy says she’s heard a bark or two. But still, four barks in five months? I’ve barked more.)
Two other points of weirdness:
- She has a habit of sitting and licking her paws, which is not unusual. But then she'll stop short halfway up her paw, her tongue still showing, and shift her big eyes slightly to stare at you. Everything frozen ... her head ... her eyes ... her tongue ... for a good 15 seconds ... before she resumes.
Who is Pavlov's dog now?
And the oddest thing still … this 60-pound soon-to-be giant continues to defy gravity. I’ve mentioned there must be helium inside. But that doesn’t do the phenomenon justice.
No, it’s like she can dance on clouds, soar with the butterflies. Even when she walks, the rear half of her seems detached and off the ground, gently swaying like the Cowardly Lion’s wayward tail.
 |
| Yeah, kind of like that. |
So it was no surprise this morning when Nellie the puppy woke me by deftly leaping the 4 feet onto the bed.
She walked over, her massive head – yes, already massive – towering over me. She gently sniffed my face, then put her 6-inch-round paw lightly onto my chest.
As if to say, “Time to get up, old man. Tidy up the backyard. There’s new treasure out there. You need to make way.”
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