7 Puppy Takes

After a long week of politics and craziness it’s time to devote ourselves to what really matters, the new puppy.

One

Last Friday, upon discovering that the puppy jar had gone over the $100 mark, and then explaining to the children that they really needed to keep working at it and get all the way up to at least $200 or maybe even $1000, who even knows, you probably can’t even get any kind of dog at this time of year, maybe we should just settle and get another cat, Matt leaned back in his chair and surreptitiously pulled up eBay on his phone. Within a couple of minutes he had found a cheweenie puppy for the remarkable ask of only $100. “Something must be wrong with it,” he said.

“I don’t care,” I said, “we can either get this puppy right now, or buy a house before Christmas.”

“Well,” he frowned, “I guess we better get this ridiculous looking puppy.”

Two

eBay is now my preferred method of dog procurement. Three years ago, or whatever, I found Asherbanapal, Ash for short, there. I thought I was getting a wiener dog and was therefore surprised to meet a strange poodle like creature mixed with some other something, terrier maybe. The main thing about Ashy is his teeth. They’re always there, grinning at you, even when he’s clearly overwrought. Not that the gets overwrought. Essentially he wants you to sit somewhere so he can sit on you. He is the perfect dog.

But I have felt, for sometime, that he would enjoy a puppy. “Don’t you think Ash would enjoy a puppy,” I’ve said, and of course the children have always agreed with me, and Matt never. Along the way, Alouicious came into a bit of cash, something like $20 and I found an old pickle jar, and so we all began shoving money into the jar whenever we could. For Ash, because we knew he so much wanted a puppy.

Three

So last Friday, after the children had finally cleaned the kitchen so that it wasn’t completely awful, I went and sat in the church office so as to bother the secretary, and Matt went on with his life, and the children ran and screamed in the parish hall, and around 4 o’clock Matt texted that we could have the dog if we wanted it. We’d have to drive to some tiny rural New York town on Monday and pick it up. So that’s what we did. Well, Matt stayed home. I told the children we would have a long morning of errands and that they musn’t cry or I would force them to do school on our day off. As we finally left Binghamton in our wake I broke down and told them we were actually going to get a puppy and they sat, silent, in stunned disbelief. Truly, they did not believe me until we actually arrived in this small town and had pulled up in front of the house.

Four

He is very small, half the size of Ash really, who is only 13 pounds. And he is very naughty. Today, before any more time passes, we have to get him something to chew on besides our hands and elbows.

When he’s sleeping he’s quite pretty.

Five

His name, officially, is Posiedon. I wanted to keep with the Assyrian dictator theme, but I was overruled. For short, half the children are calling him Posy (get it, get it, ring around the Rosy, a pocket full of Posy, Ashes, ashes, get it, we only need one more dog called Rosy, get it) one child is calling him Ponto, and I’ve been calling him Pancho Villa because I love that song. Weirdly, we all had to suffer through learning to spell Ponto last month as that is the name of the dog in one of those McGuffy books from which I derive the majority of our dictation exercises.

So far it doesn’t matter what any of us call him because he only runs around in circles and screams like a baby. The best part, really, is Marigold’s way of referring to him as “the Baby Poppy.”

Six

Here are both dogs together, straining to get away.

And here is how we left them, the other evening, when we had to go out.

They now take turns sleeping all night on my neck. It is most uncomfortable.

Seven

But everyone is completely happy, if in constant fights about who gets to hold him or put the leash on him or hold him.

Strangely, though, nobody is very eager to clean up after his many mistakes. We have a long road ahead of us.

Have a lovey day and go check out more and better takes at This Ain’t the Lyceum where there is lots and lots of help getting ready for Christmas. I, happily, am sitting pretty, ‘Puppy’ was at the top of every single child’s list.