What Can I Say? I'm Easy.

This is from the, “What was I thinking?” file.
I went to the pet store with my Science Teacher Sister because she needed something wormy and disgusting for her bearded dragon that she harbors in her classroom. As I wandered away from the icky wormy area, I came upon a little white ball of fluff looking quietly at me from behind bars. Her little black eyes looked sad, but resigned. A tiny licorice button nose completed the triangle of her face.
Now I don’t advocate buying puppies from pet stores when so many precious animals need rescuing, but this little thing looked like it needed rescuing, too.
I lost my seventeen year old Papillion only six weeks ago and didn’t plan to get a new pup quite yet. I was just looking at the sweet little thing.
A pet shop employee brought her out to me. A girl.
I would want a girl, if I got a puppy. She snuggled into my neck and sighed. Then she gave me a little puppy kiss.
Oh.
What a sweet puppy.
But my life is so trouble free and exempt from responsibilities right now. I do not need a puppy.
What a sweet puppy.

The last puppy I had ate my dining room table and chairs. No. I definitely do not want some naughty puppy eating my stuff and piddling on my floor.

I left the store with the tiny Maltese snuggled inside a pink and black puppy purse. Yes, it looked like I was going to be one of THOSE women. I had a helpful book, Training Your Maltese Puppy” under the other arm. Not that I need a book about training puppies.

I had already named her Sofia Alexis Guinn.
She stayed close to me all evening.
Very close.
She woke me a few times during the night, but that was to be expected.
The next day I had a three-hour drive home from Folsom. She was to ride in her purse. We would stop for a couple of potty breaks, of course.
Almost five hours after our trip began, we pulled into the driveway of her new home. She was sleeping wrapped around my neck, as I supported her with one hand and drove with the other. She had had enough of that purse. Forever.
Since she wormed her way out of the purse and into my heart, her true personality has emerged. She tricked me with that quiet, shy, docile act she was putting on in the pet store. She is cyclone with fur. Yesterday she was playing tug of war with a curtain. I said, ‘Stop that, Lexie” and got it from her mouth. She prissed over to the bed and defiantly keeping her eyes on me she grabbed the bed skirt in her mouth. “Your mama!”

This is a moment from the depths of Lexie’s tiny head now. She’s clearly ADHD.

Oh look! Toes! I bite it!
Oh look! A pen! I bite it!
Oh look! An ice cube! I bite it!
Oh look! A pinecone! I bite it!
Oh look! A button I bite...Hey! Give that back!
Oh look! A big dog! I bite it!
Oh look! A stick! I bite it!
Oh look a magazine! I bite it!
Oh look! A pebble! Hey! Get your fingers out of my mouth!
Oh look! Oh look a kitty’s tail! I bite it!
Oh look a newspaper! I bite it!
Oh look a sock! I biii-- zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
(Repeat process, adding other items to bite with each repetition.)
She’s no “Willy-Lump-Lump!” (as my grandmother used to call babies that just sat there like beanbags.)
No container is safe from her. She turns over wastebaskets, water dishes, and embroidery baskets and quick as lightening, runs off with whatever she gets in her mouth. She has learned that if she runs under the bed no one can get to her, and she runs off with Everything!
Speaking of under the bed, I store the extra long rolls of wrapping paper under there. Now they are extra big piles of confetti.
I keep bathroom tissue in a large copper container by each potty. She was delighted to discover the rolls of paper! They became her party streamers to drag all around the house.
Our house looks as if we own two-year-old triplets.
She is delusional, tenacious, and fearless. She playfully attacks our Rottweiler mix, Roxie, (who looks like a junk yard dog, I might add.) and shows no fear. Roxie defers to the tiny pest. Joe, our other dog, cannot even stand to look at her. He looks at me as if to say, “Why? Why did you have to bring this bug home?”
Last week, when our daughter and her family, which includes two Great Danes, visited us, Lexie made the Danes her playmates. She wholeheartedly thinks she’s Big.
I wonder about my moment of temporary insanity as I chase her into the horse pasture, slogging through mud, as she barks fiercely at the horses. I remind her that the book said she shouldn’t (a) run from her owner, and (b) go where it is dirty with that white coat of hers.
The potty training has begun and she isn’t having any part of it. Furthermore she isn’t even embarrassed when I am cleaning up her messes. No, she “helps” me by biting the paper towel. I think she piddles on the floor just to be able to play the, “Get the Paper Towel” game.
I swear I heard her whisper to the other dogs, “ Watch me get to go outside really fast!” And then she assumed the squat position.”
She also helps me mop by adding her three and a half pounds to the wet mop as I drag her around the floor. (Again with the getting dirty!) She requires many baths and they are an ordeal to say the least.
I’m exhausted. She doesn’t follow any of the rules laid out in the book. My whole life has changed!
I’m too old for this!
Then she gets sleepy and starts giving me those “suck, nip” puppy kisses. She curls up with her breath warm on my neck and falls asleep. My blood pressure drops to about sixty over twenty.
What a sweet puppy.