Hello world! My name is Alice, and I am known by many worldwide as an up-and-coming Author on Substack in a Newsletter created by my human titled “Hermit Chronicles.”
I was born on December 19th, 2023, just outside Syracuse, New York, and I am more or less 12 human weeks old, which, on a dog calendar, puts me somewhere in the range of what you humans call “the terrible twos.” If your head is starting to hurt like mine did when Dad tried to explain it to me, my human year equals seven dog years, so divide seven by 12, and you get basically .6 dog years per human calendar month of life. I am one of 15 children from my mom’s first litter and am what they call a Landseer Newfoundland. Yes, I am freaking gorgeous! And I am not shy about saying so out loud and publicly about these things my dad calls the interwebs… Whatever the ‘eff’ THAT means. Like so many other things, this is another example of what Dad tells me I will have to get a little older before he will explain the meaning to me.
My human, “the best dad ever” (he told me to write that), tells me he is a writer – whatever that means – and says he wants to teach me how to do what he does. He hasn’t explained what “best dad ever” means, though, and he says I’m too young to be on the computer unsupervised, but he promises I’m going to learn a whole lot of cool new words.
He keeps telling me that I have to roll with some of this stuff and that he will explain it when I’m older. I trust him with my life, and I love him with my whole heart – unconditionally – so I’ll do as he says. I love the sound of his voice because it’s soothing and makes me feel safe and comfortable. He does smell a little funny, though, like all the other humans I’ve met so far, but I feel like the two of us will have a great life together in the years to come, so I’m just going to”roll with it.”
He promises me that the world will be just a little bit better, even if only for a few minutes at a time, by reading all the stories I will be telling and the pictures that will accompany them, and that I will have just as much fun writing them as the rest of you will have reading them. We argued a bit over what my first story would focus on, but since I’m the one doing the writing, I won and decided to tell you about my sister.
Emma is what you humans call the “runt” of the litter (I’m not a big fan of that choice of words), but I can assure you that she is every bit as fierce and brave and loving and loyal as any of my siblings and takes no shit from anyone (Dad tells me that’s a swear word, but he assures me I will learn how to use them in just the right way, strategically placed for your entertainment, and that this one is okay to use here).
Emma had a very rough start in her life. Doggie moms only have ten milk taps; if they have more than ten babies, some of us will have to wait or fight to eat. Okay… Drink is probably a better choice of words here… But you get my meaning; when we are first born, we are effectively blind and we have to rely on our noses (with a lot of nudging from Mom to lead us where we need to go) so that we can be fed. Emma was one of the last ones to be born, and everybody else kept pushing her out of the way or just climbed over her to get Mom’s milk first. And by the way? It’s always the damn boys (Dad gave me the green light on that word, too), but a lot of the sisters took turns fighting ’em off so Emma could get her turn.
The human named Rita, who is the reason any of us are alive (Dad says she is the breeder that owns the place where I was born), along with her daughter, took turns cleaning up after us. Rita told Dad that Emma was her favorite. She would carry her around in one arm while running the vacuum with her other hand, rock her, and sing along to the music playing while everyone worked in the Kennels where the rest of my larger family lived.
I will never forget the day Dad walked in with his daughter (now Emma’s new mom); they were so happy to meet all the moms and the babies and the dads and the granddads and the smile on my new Dad’s face when Rita put me in his arms look like it went all the way from one side of his face to the other. He flatly denies that he cried, but I know he doesn’t have allergies, so I’m just going to roll with his version of the story and let him think I don’t know how much I have him wrapped around my little dew claw.
Rita had been telling me that morning that I was going to my forever home, but nobody said anything about Emma, even as I was thinking how much I would miss her once I left. Once I was in Dad’s arms, I looked over and watched Rita put Emma in his daughter’s arms, and I thought my heart would jump right out of my chest. I was dizzy with excitement, so dizzy in fact that when dad sat on the floor and they put me and Emma in his lap, the three of us were so happy we didn’t know what to do with ourselves.
While Emma’s new mom filled out all the paperwork with Rita, our mom and dad, our aunts and uncles, and even our cousins, along with our granddad, all came over to us… Licking and nudging and slobbering and kissing us goodbye – Dad too – before going back to their own business, and I could tell by the look on Dad’s face that he felt like he had died and gone to Doggie heaven. He told me it was the best day he’d had in a very long time, but I assured him, with my puppy superpower of telepathy, that the joy in his life had not even yet begun.
After about 100 last goodbye kisses from Rita, we were carried out to the car and put into the crate where Emma and I curled up together for what would be a 6-hour drive to our new forever homes. We made a couple of puppy pee stops and eventually got to Emma’s new forever home, where everybody got out of the car and went into the house to meet the rest of her new family. Emma and I can’t believe how amazing everyone is and how much we all love each other and enjoy each other’s company… her adopted Westmoreland brother and Shih Tzu sister were not at all impressed, but she and I both know they will have no choice but to adore us eventually.
When I got to my forever home, I quickly (and rather harshly) found out that my adopted cat sisters, Harriet and Opal, seemed to be having a little trouble embracing the whole “I am freaking gorgeous “vibe” I’m putting down, but sooner or later they’ll figure out I’m the best thing that ever happened in their lives… They are just playing hard to get at the moment. I mean, seriously, how can you not love and adore me? Just look at this face and these big dark black eyes.
Emma and I spent our first day separated, each getting a chance to acclimate to our new forever homes. I howled and cried most of that first night away from her, and Dad tells me she did too, but we got back together the following day. We heard the humans discussing this whole “Doggy Daycare” thing, which, as it turns out, is the best thing Emma and I could have ever asked for; we sleep apart overnight but spend the whole day together every day… Eating and drinking, peeing and pooping, roughhousing and napping, and basically destroying everything we can put our teeth on in my dad’s office, then Emma goes home after the human workday, and Dad and I spend the rest of the night resting and recuperating before starting it all over again the next morning.
I haven’t learned much about the daily human grind, as Dad calls it, but Emma and I are just about as sure as we can be a dog’s life is far, far better than anything you humans have going in yours. I mean… Do any of you get to spend your day the way we get to spend hours? And when was the last time you spent the whole day trashing a cat tree? Be honest now; Y’all know you’re jealous.
