The Puppy Tales -or- It's a Dog's Life -or2- How I Survive, Knowing Almost Half of My Pets Can Probably Beat Me at Chess

The Beginning of The End

- or -

An Inferiority Complex in the Making

- or2 -

Warning: The Peanut Gallery Could Be Hazardous to My Health!

…and my slippers.

A few years after the turn of the century, I lived out in the country in North Carolina with Deb (my wife), and Amy (one of my twin stepdaughters), although that’s already jumping ahead of the story some. …and also behind it. We’ll clear all that up when we get there.

Here’s the short geographic data as it relates to time.

Cody: Geo-temporal would work just as well.

Me: Yah. Whatever.

Deb and I spent less than a year in an apartment in Greensboro, followed by about six months, or so, in a little tiny cottage in Randleman. Then I got a decent job that allowed me to get a house in Graham, about two and a half miles from the Saxapahaw Post Office. We were there for a few years, and then I got a different job in Raleigh, so we moved to Clayton, stayed there for only about two months, and then moved back to the house in Graham. And that was where we ended up staying put.

Deb was in Sales, and had been for years and years. Although Deb is very good at Sales, she doesn’t like it all that much. On the other hand, very early in her career, Deb was responsible for a lot of the creative menu choices at the Sonic Drive-In restaurants, from what I understand.

While we were in Randleman, Amy decided to move up from the excitement (both good and bad) of Orlando, Florida to the peace and quiet of North Carolina …the sunrise crowing of the rooster next door notwithstanding …and live with us so that she could pursue a college degree. I’m not exactly sure what degree she was working toward at the time, but she was doing quite well in the process of getting it.

Star: (gets her body-wag on and says with all due enthusiasm) Go, girl!

Zoey: (her tail goes living-orbital as she turns in tight circles. She’s even happier about it than Star) Go Mom-ma! Go Mom-ma! It’s y’alls birth-day! It’s y’alls birth-day!

Annie: (running up and down the stairs between the kitchen and the den, chimes in as well, always enthusiastic with any kind of commotion as her psycho-herder thing gets in gear) Woohoo!

Nova: (who can’t ever pass up an opportunity to criticize any of the Border Collies, particularly Annie, interrupts) Annie, stop howling!

Annie: (defending herself …because she will …particularly against Nova …says impatiently) I’m not howling. I’m cheering.

Nova: (counters, daring Annie to start something, because Nova is …well …Nova, and because I’m sitting right there …which makes Nova a little braver) It sounds like howling.

Cody: (interrupts the impending and potentially violent escalation of the discussion between Annie and Nova). Bravo, Amy!

Annie: (adds persistently, because Border Collies don’t get distracted easily, dropping her nose a little and showing a bit of her teeth) It’s not howling, Six. Go away.

Me: (At this point, I have to jump in because I know where this is about to go, just as well as Cody does …and when it does, it goes very quickly so) Puppies.

Nova: (quips with grumbling indignation because she must have the last word) "I didn’t do anything."

Me: (I give Nova a stern look) …ahem… (and I wait for Nova to look at me)

Nova: (takes a few seconds, but looks, and then goes and plops down on the pillow in front of the fireplace with disgust) Okay! Sheesh!

My personal opinion was that Amy should go for being an Epidemiologist, or work for the CIA, or get involved with the NSA somehow, instead of pursuing Political Science, Liberal Arts, English Lit, or any of the other things that she could have done exceedingly well very easily at, and with extremely little effort.

But in any event, you should be able to begin to see my disadvantage already. I’m already outnumbered by females, not even getting to the puppies yet.

Loki: (the littlest pup of the pack, although not the youngest, but by far the most curious, jumps up and puts his hands on my lap while I’m typing) Dad. When do we come in?

Me: (reaches down and rubs Loki between his eyes, scratches the top of his head, and then wraps my hand around one of his ears and gives it a tug – all of them like that a whole lot, and I do it quite often to every one of them. So rather than tell you over and over and over that it’s happening, you can probably just assume as a matter of course that if I’m in contact with one or more of the pups that this is something that I’m probably doing) I’m getting there, Loki-Doke. Gimme a sec.

Between the three of us humans, we have seven dogs…

Cody: (interrupts from her spot under the desk which makes her voice, oddly enough, sound like she’s in a cave. …or maybe not so oddly) "Father, I prefer the term Canine Persons."

Me: (knowing THAT was going to happen because – hard as it may be to believe – I understand that most of the rest of the world just considers them dogs, and I forget that Border Collies – and these Border Collie Canine Persons, in particular – are more than just slightly anal about it) Yes. I know, Cody. I’m getting there. I’m trying not to just throw whoever is reading this straight into the deep end.

Star: (adds, because Star has a sense of humor that I haven’t actually figured out the basis for, other than that she’s got about half again as many IQ points as I do) "Did someone say Rabbit Hole…?"

Me: (wondering what the heck Star is talking about, I twist around so that I can see Star laying across the feet of my rolling office chair, which I have asked her repeatedly not to do, because I’m afraid I’m going to move the chair and roll over something important. …like Star. …I’ve already found wads of fur under the wheels as she jumps out of the way a number of times)

Star: (her head comes up until her nose is past the vertical, and in questioning surprise like she’s just realizing who I am as she looks upside-down at me, asks) Alice…?!

Me: (Okay. I figured it out) …cute…

Star: (not being one to leave something unsaid …or pass up an opportunity to tease me …or maybe just showing off some of those IQ points …says with just a little disappointment) You’re slipping, Dad. That was an easy one.

Me: (asking yet again) Star, would you please not lay under the chair. One of these days I’m going to forget you’re there and roll over your leg, or tail, or something.

Star: (putting a hugely sad face on) You leave without …Petri…?

Me: (that one I got …on the first try) I’m telling you. You’re going to get rolled on someday. …especially with the way you get your hands between the chair legs and the floor.

Star: (seriously, for once) But Cody’s under the desk next to your feet.

Me: (understanding this one first try, too) There’s enough room under there for both of you.

Cody: (still from under the desk, as if it’s entirely the privilege of being the Canine Alpha, and she’s not moving over …not even for her sister) Yes, Father. But not with your feet down here at the same time as the both of us.

Me: Ah.

So at this particular moment in the Tales Time Continuum…

Cody: It took you two tries to spell that correctly, didn’t it, Father?

Me: Yes it did. Be quite so I can think.

Cody: I could tell by the key clicks.

Me: …cute…

…between the three of us humans we have three Border Collies – all female, none fixed – three Shetland Sheepdogs – two females and one male.

Loki: (jumps up again, with a big grin) That’s me!

None fixed.

Loki: (pops up repeatedly like he’s trying to jump all the way up into my lap, and says far more than joyfully) That’s REALLY me!

Me: (in my best Brooklyn accent) Dude. Gimme a bureak, okay? I’m wurkin’ heeh!

Loki: (drops his butt to the floor and pays close attention, as he apparently isn’t able to translate Brooklynese) Wuut…?

Me: (I fluently speak only two languages – with apologies to Corbin Dallas – English and Bad English, so I switched to my normal totally mixed up mode of Bad English, I’m working. I’ll get to all that. In the meantime, put a leash on it, please.

Loki: (cocks his head and asks confusedly) Put a leash on what?

Me: (I drop my shoulders, tilt my head slightly down and to the right to face more his back end than his front, and say through my nose with pursed lips and a cocked eyebrow) Hmm…

Loki: (turns and goes over to lay down by Piper near the coffee table) Oh. …Okay. …Sorry.

…and one good-ol’-boy Golden Retriever. He came to us from a rescue unit. He’s been fixed.

Piper: (stands, dislodging Loki, who had been half laying over Piper’s neck. And because Piper’s very well mannered, he bows, even though you can’t see him. He knows I’ll tell you about it anyway, though) Not that I was actually broken to begin with.

They all live inside with us.

…Yes. …inside.

…In the house.

…All of them.

…No …We’re not crazy.

Okay. So …maybe we might be just a little crazy.

On the other hand, they have about a half an acre back yard that has been fenced in, so they have a fairly good sized area where they can run around freely. And they spend most of a normal day out there. However, they spend their nights in the kitchen and dining room, which are parts of one big room separated only partially by a peninsula cabinet.

Loki: (who is about as curious as they come, will stick his nose into just about everything. And since he’s pretty small, even for a Sheltie, his nose is pretty small, as well …so he can actually get it deep enough wherever he’s sticking it, that he can get himself into a whole lot of trouble in some cases. …hops up and puts his hands on my leg again to make sure that I notice him, even though whether he’s up or down has no bearing on how well I can hear him) How come we have to stay in the kitchen? We’re all out of the chewing stage. …mostly.

Zoey: (from over by the sliding glass doors, where she can lay in the sun, looking like roadkill, bends herself around so that she looks like she’s practically boneless and with the top of her head still against the floor, says in her slightly deeper than Loki’s voice with her smooth southern drawl) Ah do bahlieve that most of us are, anyway. (Zoey pointedly looks not-so-nonchalantly in just about every direction other than directly at Nova, which isn’t easy considering that Zoey is flat on her back with her feet leaned up against the wall, and her nose is pointed straight at Nova) Not that Ah’m one to name names, mahnd y’all.

Nova: (doesn’t miss the implication, and absolutely does not allow it pass by uncommented on, says defensively) I didn’t do it.

Me: (explaining to Nova, even though Loki was the one who asked the question) I know you didn’t, Nova. It’s just that I don’t care for dog hair all over the furniture.

Cody: (prompts from under the desk) …Canine Person…

Nova: (who must be feeling a little grumpy today, or is still choosing to stay offended at losing the argument with Annie a little earlier …or just because she’s the one that sheds the worst of them all – to the point where the fridge stopped working once, so I emptied it, flipped it over onto its back, and pulled out a huge pile of grey fur, and the fridge worked fine after that …says with some degree of petulance …and, of course, because she just can’t leave well enough alone) Maybe you should have gotten cats?

Me: (responding blankly) No, thanks.

Star: (whose face suddenly resembles the grinning Joker, as played by Jack Nicholson in Batman pops her head up from in front of the Garage door, where she had moved without me noticing) Why? Cats are fun.

Loki: (reminding me) Lina has a cat.

Me: I know. And she keeps trying to convince me – and failing, I might add – that Smudgie is almost a dog.

Cody: (correcting me, yet again with a small sigh) "…Canine Person. And the phrase Canine Envy comes most immediately to mind where Lina is concerned."

Me: (to Cody even though she can’t see my top half from where she is, tucked under the desk) "Probably. But her Mom is a Cat Person, so that was all she’d let her get, other than hamsters or fish. However, we all know very well that Lina calls up every now and then and tells me, and I quote: I miss my Puppies!"

Annie: Lina’s Mom doesn’t like dogs? What’s wrong with dogs?

Me: (completely bypassing the You might sooner ask: What’s wrong with Lina’s Mom quip, because even though all the pups are smart, that’s one thing they just wouldn’t get. …Well …Cody would. …but she wouldn’t think it was funny after analyzing it to death) There’s absolutely nothing wrong with d... Canine Persons. Everyone should have at least one in the family! Canine Persons are far better than cats.

Loki: (still standing with his hands on my leg) What’s wrong with cats?

Cody: (gets up and sticks her nose between my knees, forcing me to make room for her head, pushes in just far enough that we can look at each other eye to eye. She blinks a few times rapidly, and then just looks at me with a cocked eyebrow, which very clearly says without actually saying it: You had to know that that was coming.)

Me: (who doesn’t miss the Cody look …nor its implication …says to Cody with little humor) …nice... You came all the way up here just for that?

Star: (steps into the pause and answers Loki happily …or evilly, depending on your particular point of view) Nothing is wrong with cats! I like cats!

Me: (with a measure of surprise, turning to look at Star) You do…?

Star: (and I should have seen it coming) Yah! They taste like chicken!

Me: (to Star first) …cute… (then to Loki) Loki, I’m very allergic to cats. And I’ve met only one that didn’t own every thing and every body within its domain of influence. …and they all have a very wide range of domain. That one cat was one I would have gladly taken in, if not for the allergies. But that was a good while ago, and Sunny Day died of an enlarged heart. …which was a total shame. Just about all the rest I’ve seen seem to assume that your only purpose is to serve them. …which many people do so quite gladly, and without ever figuring it out.

Cody: (adding her thoughts into the mix, after having laid back down under the desk) The old adage rings true: To a Canine, you’re family. To a Cat, you are Staff.

Piper: Besides, Loki …Dad, Mom and Amy are all Dog People – a very superior breed of human, in my humble opinion – and a fact for which I am personally very grateful.

Loki: (because … well …because …he’s Loki) Me too! I’d hate to be a cat.

Star: (who looks askance at Loki with one eyebrow raised, nods condescendingly) …right…

Me: (glad that Star didn’t go any farther down that path that Loki oh-so-conveniently open for her, and changing the subject slightly) That’s another thing I like about Canine Persons. Y’all have functional eyebrows.

Star: (looks askance at me with the opposite eyebrow raised now, nods condescendingly) …right…

Author’s Note: So …if you’ve completely lost where we were before that long interruption, I had just said that the Pups spend nights in the kitchen and dining room.

The pups have the run of the den, too. The den is two steps down from the kitchen, and is a refinished one car garage that runs the entire width of the house. It’s carpeted, and they can be there if they’re not too soggy (…the pups, not the stairs) from whatever weather we’ve just experienced.

Deb: (enters the room, and sits down at her desk, the back of which butts up against the side of mine, between mine and the sliding glass doors on this side of the den. The pups all look at her. …and then they all look at Star. No one asks Star why she hasn’t done the maintenance. They all know. …but they wish Star would get it done somehow anyway, because some aspects of life would be just plain simpler. If Deb wasn’t paranoid about going down the steps and not falling, she might have noticed all the pups looking at her. …on the other hand …maybe it’s better that she’s paranoid about the steps …and doesn’t notice the staring)

And our pups talk. I’ll get to that a little later, but they talk. …as you have seen. Actually, all Canine Persons talk and carry on both conversations with themselves and (almost always) one-sided conversations with their people. Their people almost never actually understand accurately more than just a few things without the Canine Persons having to act out or show what they want to tell their people.

Some Canine Persons talk excessively.

Deb: (who decides that life is slightly more sane in the front room, turns to leaves, and quips) I think your imagination is excessive.

Me: (who is severely outnumbered by those who don’t understand what the pups are saying, and is sometimes the brunt of some not so nice jokes) Et tu, Brute’?

Loki: What’s Brutay?

Cody: (who has answers for just about everything because she is driven to learn things, and has wonderful capabilities of retention. …not just anal) It’s a Caesarian quotation.

Star: (Before Cody can give the details, and because Star has a strange sense of humor, as I have mentioned) Is that anything like a Caesarian Section?

Zoey: (because she likes to play the Border Collie Games – which are always competitively intellectual – and is very competitive on her own) Is that anythin’ like a Caesah Salad?

Piper: (who is very smart in his own right, and very well mannered, but doesn’t care much at all for the Border Collie Games) I like Caesar Salads! …I’m not real big on the anchovies, though.

Me: (who gets exasperated sometimes because the pups just don’t normally say anything while Deb is present) Why don’t you guys do this when Mom’s around?

Loki: (who I had forgotten was still standing with his hands on my leg, says apologetically because when he’s not being Loki-ish really does want to please the human part of the pack) We do. But I think her transmitter doesn’t work real good.

Cody: (because she just can’t help correcting anyone) …real well.

Loki: (who is so at ease with himself that he doesn’t get offended with anything that Star or Cody say) Yah. Not that either. She just thinks that we’re saying mushy stuff all the time.

Cody: (who is far smarter than what is good for her) Far be it from me to complain, Father, but while Mother is rather large on love and affection, she does not often engage us in stimulating conversation, even if it must be one-sided in either direction.

Loki: (who is smart enough that he’s a pleasure to be around, but still occasionally acts his size, which shouldn’t be equated with his age …or his intelligence, but often is …unfortunately) She picks me up too much.

Nova: (trying very hard, as she normally does, to act like she thinks a Princess should act) Loki. Just show her you don’t like it. Don’t run to her every time she calls you. Ignore her most of the time.

Loki: (who doesn’t like to hurt people’s feelings) I love Mom! She just hugs me too hard.

Nova: (exasperated) I’m tellin’ ya! Just ignore her like I do.

Star: (who just loves to hoist a Sheltie …or anyone else for that matter …on their own petards …even though Cody is the only other one in the entire household, including the human portion, that knows exactly what a petard is) Yah, right? Like you don’t go begging just as soon as Dad says your name!

Nova: (who hates the petard thing …regardless of whatever it is) Oh, stuff it, Miss Full Body Wag!

Star: (who figures that she has already won with that last quip of Nova’s) You stuff it, Miss Full Body!

Nova: (starting to get huffy …yet again) Are you saying I’m fat?

Me: (knowing I should have gotten back to writing a good while back) Puppies!

Yah. Puppies. Talking. Excessively. As you can hear …see... …er …read. …whatever. …People’s Exhibit A.

Anyway.

By the pups own choice, however, no one else gets transmitters – whatever those are, however they work, however they got installed (I know how, and we’ll get to that in a later chapter, but for now, I’ll just try to leave the mystery intact). I get the impression that it’s solely a Star and Cody thing as to why we’ve been the only known recipients of such devices. I suspect that Star is the only one that can build them, and the only one that ever has. We’re the only ones in the world that have them. …as far as I know.

Cody: (who loves to fill in the things that I’ve left out, and prompts me occasionally for the things that I should put in) And at this particular moment, Mother’s isn’t working.

And Deb’s doesn’t work.

Cody: And Amy is mostly in denial.

And Amy is mostly in denial.

Zoey: (defending Amy) Mah Momma is not!

Star: "Would that be Denial, or Redundant for Dad repeating Cody?

Cody: (starting up another round of the Border Collie Games) Denial of Denial? Would that be Zoey, or Amy?

Zoey: (sputters because she has just lost a round of the games without having fired a shot, but doesn’t say anything further …as opposed to Nova, Zoey knows when to cut her losses)

So no one else hears them, other than me.

Piper: (who doesn’t like feeling left just out because he’s bigger than the Border Collies, a lot bigger than the Shelties, and a whole lot slower and less energetic than either set – big and slow does not by any means imply that he’s any less intelligent than the rest of them) Amy can hear us, by the way. But she thinks it’s just weird.

So this is probably a good thing, although it doesn’t lend much to my credibility – which the pups consider just as well. I think the publicity would cramp their style.

Loki: (chimes in, being the outgoing little guy that he is) Not mine. Bring ‘em on!

Annie: (being the psycho-herder, and runs around at the slightest provocation, and usually actively seeks out those provocations) Crowds. Yes!

Star: (confirming my suspicion. …or possibly just disagreeing with Annie to disagree with her. …with Star, who knows) Crowds. No!

Me: Puppies.

We didn’t know much about pups at first. More accurately, I didn’t know anywhere near as much about dogs as Deb did. I’d had a bunch of dogs (one at a time) when I was growing up. But like the vast majority of kids, I wanted the pups but didn’t want the responsibility of taking care of them. I grew up in Vermont, and we were in town, and my Dad kept most of them chained to the garage – until they succeeded in pulling the five inch bolts out of the garage’s structural framing that held the chains. …at which point he’d give up and just let them run loose. Most of them stayed close to the house, or at least didn’t wander too far off.

But I knew that I had always wanted one of what we just called Barn Dogs. My favorite pup when I was young was one that we had when I was in second grade – Trousers – a Barn Dog. My Dad said I could name him either Trousers or Long Underwear. I don’t know why those were the only two choices, but I chose Trousers because I thought that Long Underwear had too many syllables to be called out conveniently.

I had also worked on my Uncle Jack’s dairy farm one summer, and he had a Barn Dog. I forget his name right off (…the Pup’s, not Uncle Jack), but Uncle Jack would send him out to bring in the cows. His Barn Dog would immediately shoot off up the hill, out past the blackberry patch, and into the woods. The cows would be at the barn in less than five minutes. But he would never go until Uncle Jack …and only Uncle Jack …sent him.

Barn Dogs were smart, and they were a lot of fun, and even in second grade I was aware enough to know that there was just something different about Barn Dogs. …not aware enough about too much of anything else, but, hey. …we’re talking about the Barn Dogs here, not me.

I described Trousers and my Uncle Jack’s dog to Deb, and she informed me that these are actually Border Collies – the dog that just happens to sit in the #1 spot on the Dog IQ chart.

Cody: (interrupting, yet again) I prefer the term Canine Person.

Me: (apologizing …yet again) I know, Cody.

Nova: (because she can’t just let things sit) So does everyone else by now, Co-DEE.

So Deb got me one that next Christmas.

Me: For which I will be eternally grateful!

Star: (because she was the one that we got first) Awww! This part always makes me cry when you tell it. …sniff…

Me: You should have been an actress.

Star: (immediately turning serious) Too furry for the good parts. And they made The Sound of Music years ago.

Nova: What does THAT have to do with anything!

Me: Puppies.

And this jumped the population of our in-house family from three to five.

Nova: (because …well …you know) Three plus one is four, Dad.

Me: (leaning over and giving Nova a scratch. She had gotten up off her pillow, and had come over to get her ear pulled – it’s nice not being ignored; her or me – so I accommodated her) You’ll notice that Star and Cody aren’t commenting.

Nova: So?

Annie: Shut up, Nova. Dad will explain the whole thing.

Nova: You shut up! I’ll talk if I want.

Star: (who was back under my chair again, but got up and came around to the other side where Nova is. …puts on her Jack Nicholson/ Joker face, but does a Dirty Harry voice as she steps up beside Nova and leans in close so that all Nova can see is teeth) Okay. Bug-GAH. So talk.

Nova: …gulp!... Okay. I’m shutting up, now.

Star: (satisfied with the reaction, flops down where she is, drapes herself over my chair wheels again, and mumbles) Good choice.

Nova: You didn’t have to yell.

Cody: (stepping in as the Canine Alpha) Enough. Please.

I know very well that three plus