Dear Diary,
It is a beautiful and glorious day here in the Northeast, and me and my Dad pray this entry finds you and yours are happy, healthy, and safe.
If anyone is keeping track, you might notice I’m a few days late this week. Me and Dad had a lengthy discussion about him hogging the computer at the tail end (see what I did there?) of last week, and into the weekend, but when he finally got around to showing me what he was working on there was no way I was going to make him break his concentration- I know a thing or two about being easily distracted – but I know how much this project means to him. While I waited for my turn at the computer, I just took extra naps as I listened with one ear to his questions about what I thought on this or that paragraph, or whether I thought he was conveying just the right message in his work. And I just kept growing, and getting more freaking gorgeous, while I waited for my turn.
Since my last entry, me and Emma have been livin’ large, literally; now that there are almost never accidents in the house anymore, he lets us lay on Beatrice with him in front of the air conditioner on hot days, and just chill 😉
We went back to the Vet’s office… again… and I am happy to report that I beat my sister to 50 lbs (she is at 48 and change). We are now officially five months old, which is roughly three and a half human years! Dad says we are eating him, literally, out of house and home but that he wouldn’t have it any other way. Honestly? I never understood why Dad got so upset about us eating Beatrice’s box spring… It’s not like he can’t buy another one when we are done teething. And before I forget, speaking of teething, I also got rid of all my baby teeth before my sister… Winning, again, in the race to Growing Up… And I just refuse to listen to him when he says I should not be in a hurry to grow up. He mumbles something about how much I’ll miss my childhood once I’m an adult, but clearly, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. I mean… Isn’t the whole point of growing up about getting there as fast as you can? I’m getting better at understanding humans, but I still have a long way to go.
Now that me and Emms (that’s dad’s nickname for my sister, although sometimes he calls her his little chocolate chunk) are finally done with the most important of our puppy shots, we are finally getting more exposure to the wider world we are living in. What a beautiful and amazing place this is!
Like, for instance, we see all these squirrels running around like me and my sister do – chasing each other around in circles, running up and down trees and across tree branches(we think it’s terribly unfair that we can’t climb up and down trees and run across branches, for what it’s worth) – but it is an amazing thing to watch. And the birds! Oh my God, there are so many birds, and they are always talking to each other and yelling at us as we start to chase after them and make them fly up in the air; why can’t we fly up in the air!? And, OMG, the bees, although I learned the hard way it’s not wise to catch them in your mouth, and the amazing smells coming off the flowers just drive our noses completely insane.
While Dad sits in what he calls his perch, drinking coffee in the morning with me, I just love life so much first thing in the morning with all of that nature stuff going on all around me, I think my favorite thing to do is roll around on my back kicking my feet up in the air and being just about the happiest Landseer Newfoundland that has ever lived!
Everybody knows that Newfoundlands are water dogs, but very few are aware that, when we are initially exposed to it coming at us from a hose, it scares the bejesus out of us; all at once, it is cool and refreshing, but at the same time terrifying as it hits up against us and we cannot do anything to stop it… We can’t bite it, slap at it, or even run away from it, and it takes us a good bit of time to just accept that water will always win. And the way my Dad showed me how to get along with it and make friends with it was to fill up a big metal bucket that held all the water in one place so I could slap it around a little while until I figured out that, on a hot day, we could be the best of friends. I am now forever in love with water, and maybe, except for my Dad and my sister, I’m pretty sure it’s going to be my best forever friend!
Before I go, Dad thought y’all might be interested in meeting Georgie, my other forever friend, and knowing how important he is in my life. He keeps trying to tell me that I’m going to outgrow Georgie someday because, as a puppy binky, it’s the sort of thing you put away as you leave childhood and become an adult. Like I said earlier, I still have trouble sometimes understanding humans. I cannot for the life of me understand why he thinks this is the sort of thing I will ever outgrow; Georgie makes me happy, he gives me comfort, he keeps me company when I’m sleeping at night, and he’s always there ready for me to pick him up and carry him around the house whenever I’m feeling lonely or bored or just want someone to curl up with. If humans think this is the sort of thing that must be outgrown, I’m afraid Dad and I are just going to have to agree to disagree.
I met Georgie on the first day Emma and I came home after leaving our mom and moving to our forever homes. When they handed him to me, squeezing his belly and making squeaking sounds, it was love at first sight, and we had not been apart since. In fact, if I can’t find him before I go to bed, I will not stop barking at my Dad until he drops everything, finds Georgie, and squeezes his belly a couple of times before handing him over to me so I can settle in for the night.
The first thing I do in the morning after breakfast is scoop up my little man and jump up onto Beatrice as Dad settles into his morning email routine. While he talks into his microphone, I squeeze Georgie’s belly, and he talks to me—just like Dad’s computer talks to him. And since Dad is never going to outgrow his computer, he’s just going to have to get over himself on the issue of me ever intending to outgrow my Georgie; to each his own binky 🙂
