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 The nose doesn’t get withdrawn until the bowl’s clear.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?