Luci's Diary: Christmas. And is Toffee growing?

The last few weeks have been just great.

Two of the young humans came to see us, and that’s always fun. They’re very good at playing with dogs. And for a couple of days, two other people came and stayed too. It was glorious! Six people in the house! Oh, laps galore, everywhere you looked! Our young puppy Toffee and I had a whale of a time. They call this season Christmas and a lot of humans make a fuss about it – not just my humans but others too – so I’m all in favour. Let’s have lots of Christmas. It’s fun.

One thing about having Toffee around is that I’ve learned to eat a lot faster. There was a time I could take my time over meals, have a bit now, leave it for a while, go back and have some more. The worst that might happen was that the cat Misty tried to eat some of it, but I always found that a run at him with a few barks was enough to drive him off.

Doesn’t work with Toffee. When she gets her nose in a bowl, that’s it. The nose doesn’t get withdrawn until the bowl’s clear. What am I saying, clear? The right word’s clean. Not a speck of food to be seen. You can bark as much as you like, it doesn’t do the slightest bit of good. Running at her’s no use either. I mean, you could jump up and down if you felt like it, she wouldn’t see you anyway, with her nose that far inside a bowl.

“She’s like a magnet,” I heard one of the humans say, and the other one agreed. 

Now I don’t know what a magnet is but I gather it’s something pretty sticky, and once Toffee gets stuck into food, she stays stuck. Like she’s glued. Can’t be shifted. I saw human number 2 try to take a bowl away, but she kept following it, sucking up the last few crumbs just as he was trying to save them.

So I eat fast. Get my food finished before she’s finished hers. Because as soon as she’s gobbled hers down, she wanders over to see what she can find in my bowl. And you know what? I can’t stop her. She’s not much bigger than a bag of treats, but she’s got drive like other dogs have fleas. When she turns up at my bowl and pushes her nose in, I just back away. I can’t explain it, it’s just stronger than me.

Still, it’s not all bad having her around. It makes walks more interesting. It’s good to have the company.

Walks can be more fun with company

Besides, we often do a lot of playing. She likes to chase me. That’s fine. I’m happy to be chased when it’s by something as small as that. Besides, there’s no way she’s going to catch me. When I take off, I show her a clean pair of heels, I can tell you. She doesn’t give up – she keeps trying, I’ll give her that – but she doesn’t get close.

That’s great. We have some good fun together. And it spares me having anything to do with other dogs – big, noisy, smelly things, I think they are, full of strange smells and threatening motions. Not that it bothers her: she just runs up to them, jumping up and trying to lick their faces, saying “like me, like me, like me.” Some of them seem to, though I must say I’d find that kind of thing annoying.

Anyway, I just hang back a bit, well clear of any other dog, and wait for Toffee to finish. Then she can play with me again. Which gives me another chance to show her how much better I am at it than she is. As I streak away from her.

Though sometimes I get worried: she is getting faster.

There’s a bit of an argument between the humans about that.

“She’s barely growing,” says number 1, “she’s going to be a teacup poodle.”

“Nonsense,” says number 2, “she’s doing just fine. She’s put on hundreds of grams since we’ve had her. I think she’s developing a bit of an Eiffel Tower syndrome.”

I don’t know what the Eiffel Tower is, but apparently he thinks she’s going to be enormous. Now number 1 knows more about dogs than number 2 – a lot more – but what if he’s right? Is Toffee going to be bigger than me? Will she start catching me when she chases me in the park?

It doesn’t bear thinking about. What would I do?

Luci's diary: it' so hot...

Luci’s Diary. It just keeps getting hotter. But playing's still fun. If you find the right companions, or pick the right element. 

July 2015

It’s got so hot! When I was just a little puppy, it was fine. I used to be really proud of my fine coat. It kept me feeling great while all the humans went around being miserable about the cold. But now I’m a big girl: 4.1 kilos, I’m told, and if you think that point-one isn’t important, think again: it puts me in the big dog category for Advocate flea treatment, and that matters.

And I don’t care that the silly owner of one of those stupidly oversized dogs – a Rottweiler or something – reckoned I was just the size of one of his dog’s meals. All that says is that there’s a lot too much of his dog.

Panting time.
I say pants to this hot weather.

Anyway, now I’m a big dog, it’s much too hot. I just hope it won’t go on getting hotter and hotter because, though human number 1 has got my fur clipped really short, I still find myself panting all the time when I’m out walking. And walking has to be my second favourite activity, after eating (you never know, I could make it to 4.2 kilos soon), so I don’t like it being made uncomfortable for me.

Well, I say second favourite. It’s probably third really. Playing with Misty has got to be second. He’s funny about that. Always complaining. He has this silly plaintive mew, and it fools the humans.

“Luci,” they say, “stop tormenting the cat.”

Yeah, right. I’ve got the measure of him. If I stop so-called “tormenting” him, he just comes running up to me, saying “go on, play with me, play with me again.” He just likes playing hard to get, that’s all there is to all the fuss he makes…

You think he's not enjoying himself?.
If I stop, he comes chasing me to start again

It’s not just with the cat that playing’s fun. It’s brilliant playing with puppies. And I’ve worked something out: humans have puppies too. They’re the smaller ones, the ones I always liked. Human puppies, if you know what I mean.

It turns out they’re good for a romp too.

We met some in the park the other day. I don’t know if everyone has this problem, but whenever we meet humans they always seem to want to touch me. They come up saying silly things like “oh, isn’t she cute?” (or worse still, “isn’t he cute?”) and then, inevitably, they follow it up with “can we stroke her?”

The puppy humans in the park were just the same. They all kept asking whether they could stroke me, as though it was any good asking human number 2 (he’d come along on my walk.) He said yes, but I shot off as soon as they got close. And – joy! bliss! ecstasy! – they started chasing me. Oh, wow, that was such a great time. Even in this terrible warm weather. Somehow I didn’t notice it so much, oddly enough. Funny how much you can put with when you’re having a good time.

It seems human puppies like playing as much
as the real ones do.

In any case, I’ve found out what’s good in this heat. Water. Go right into it and it cools you down like magic. Don’t think I mentioned before that I’d learned to swim. Well, I have, and it’s great.

It’ll be useful, too, if things just go on getting hotter.

Yup. That's me swimming.