Bark and the world barks with you.

Whine, and you whine alone.

Jamie here.  Ziggy says he's not to be held liable for the photograph-less-ness boringness of this post, nor its egregiously maudlin content.  However, I can't resist.

Well, after three solid days of puppy owning, I think I'm finally kind of getting the hang of having a puppy.

Ok, that was an outright lie.

LOL.

What I did remind myself of this morning and this afternoon and about a hundred times already today is how much joy a puppy brings not just myself, but lots of people, and even though it's in a very small way, we can all use a little happiness every day, never mind in these tough times.

Seriously.

Taking Ziggy out in the front lawn?

Strangers can't help themselves. Walking by, they ooh and ahh about the puppy.  Having a crummy day? Take a puppy for a walk. People will give two flying crabapples about your day, but they will want to pet your puppy, smile at your puppy, stop and tell you about their puppy. And it will make you feel better, somehow, no matter how rotten your day has been.)

Trust me. The beginning of the week had some very crummy non-puppy stuff in
store for me. Having a puppy, being sleep deprived because of said puppy, and
worrying about doing everything right by the puppy--it didn't make the
non-puppy stuff easier, I will admit. It would have been easier this week to be
puppy free.

But you know what did help? Ironically... having a puppy! The sheer joy and amazement the puppy holds for every single little thing humbles you. It makes you more keenly aware of things we take for granted, like sunshine (ok, so no one ever takes sunshine for granted where I live!) and clean air and a little breeze rippling through the blades of grass. Heck, even a blade of grass is SUPER AMAZING AND YOUR PUPPY WOULD TELL YOU ALL ABOUT IT IF HE COULD.  (And he does--just look at his face, alive in wonderment!)

Seriously. Take a puppy along for a spin if you can. You'll be amazed at how, "LOOK MA! IT'S THE *WORLD*! ISN"T IT GREAT?!?!?" she is.

(Ziggy even managed to make the staff's day at the vet on Monday, just by being small and precious and cute, and I imagine at a vet's office, that's a pretty tall order given all the small and precious and cute they probably see in a given day!)

Loving a puppy, doing all the housetraining making sure you do right by your puppy... it is hard work. It seems never-ending. And yet it isn't.

This time is finite, and one day your puppy won't be a puppy any more. People will nod at you and your wonderful old dog as you walk sedately (or not) down the street. But they probably won't run over and ask you to pet your puppy with an ill-supressed glimmer of childhood remembered in their eye.

Life will be comfortable with the dog, one day in the future. You'll forget what's it's like to coax a puppy down the block for twenty five minutes because he's so darn interested in the neighbor, your shoes, your ankle, the pavement, the bird, the sky, the... everything... You'll hopefully be cleaning up fewer messes. You won't make the mistake I did last night and forget to lock the kennel door, and wake up to a shredded obedience book (message, there, to momma, Ziggy?) and if you did, your stuff won't be damaged.

But you won't ever have the puppy time back again. It's a gift that way.

A gift and a joy.

Celebrate your puppies and love the dogs they become!