Thursday, July 15, 2010

Puppy power!  (a guest post)

Guest blog post by Ralphie Bateman...

Hi. I’m a nine week-old cocker spaniel and my name is…. er.. actually I don’t know what my name is yet. A couple of weeks ago I left my brothers, sisters and mum (I never knew my dad, he left before I was born) and moved in with my new parents. They’re cool, although they don’t have as much hair as me, and they have a nice house with lots of things to play with. I’m particularly keen on putting things in my mouth and chewing them, it feels good!

I love my new parents and I get a bit upset when one of them leaves. It’s even worse when they’re both away and I’m on my own, that makes me cry a lot, but sometimes the neighbours pop round to say hello. They have a dog too but he’s much bigger than me and could probably eat me for breakfast.

My parents keep saying things to me and I wish I could understand. “No”, seems to be their favourite word but I haven’t worked out what that means yet. They say “sit” a lot too and “wee wees” and “din dins” but it’s all jibberish to me. But when they shout Ralphie and open their arms out to me I always run and greet them and then they give me lots of fuss, which I like.

I get lots of fuss after pooing and weeing sometimes too but I can’t work out why I do and then why I don’t. Sometimes I get fuss and a treat, other times I don’t. All I know is when I’ve got to go I’ve got to go, you know what I mean? I don’t often get time to think about it and sometimes I’m just so excited that I can’t hold onto it a second longer. And I really love the chase the kitchen roll game when mum or dad wipes up one of my wees. It’s great –I try and attack it and they try and push me out the way and sometimes they use a bottle of spray and I try and bite it. Woof!

Last night I met some other dogs and it was pretty scary. Bar one they were all bigger than me so I hid under the chair for a lot of the time. The other dogs were biting and hitting each other and chasing each other round, which I didn’t want any part of. There were lots of treats there, which was nice, and I got a lot of strokes and fuss from some children as well as my parents and someone called The Vet, I guess the other dogs weren’t so bad, they just wanted to play, but one of them pawed me in the eye and made me cry a bit. It hurt! Sometimes the big dogs sat on their owners’ laps and me and another little dog, a tiny weeny one, could roam around without being pounced on. That was quite nice and I started wagging my tail again, but I was still a bit nervous and glad when it was all over. I was shattered and slept all the way home in the car.

I’m learning lots of things too. I can now jump up the step to go outside and I know if I use the beanbag I can get up on the settee. I can also gallop up the stairs now but I haven’t figured out how to get down and that makes me cry. I also know that when my parents are in the kitchen, sometimes I get a bowl of food, so I whimper at them to hurry them along. A puppy’s gotta eat, right?

One of my favourite things is to curl up on mum or dad’s lap, or on the floor by their feet, and go to sleep. Dad’s got big hairy toes which are great for resting my head on. I dream of bones and hope my new parents don’t mind that I sometimes snore.