At times I wonder

At times I wonder what we were thinking.

Like when I was getting dressed one day last week and discovered a hole in my sock that wasn’t there when I had taken it off the night before. Or yesterday when I was on my hands and knees in the living room mopping up a coke that had been sent flying after a high-speed collision between a TV tray and a dog bed. Or all the time I’ve spent cleaning up broken branches and tree bark that litter every room as if we’d been running a wood chipper inside the house.

But yes, we had to get a puppy.

My friend E-dub, who still has a dog, gave up puppies long ago. He prefers adult rescue dogs and their accompanying baggage to raising another one himself.

“I’m too old for that s….,” he says.

So are Barb and I, but apparently we’d forgotten.

We picked up Dot last September on the same day we had our 14-year-old springer Jem put down. The pup and the old dog met for a few minutes before I loaded Jem in the truck for a final visit to the vet.

We suspect something passed between the two black and white dogs during that short meeting, something Stephen King could write about.

Dot, although no relation to Jem except by breed, is a bit of a chip off the old block. She is hard-headed, inhales her food, and seems quite content hunting on her own.

Barb loved Jem, but when it came time to pick a new puppy, she suggested we go with a female instead of another male.

They’re smaller, a bit more eager to please, and typically don’t lick themselves as much. Or so we thought.

Dot is only slightly smaller than Jem, is eager for us to please her, and although she isn’t much of a licker, loves to hump her dog bed.

Ace, our 10-year-old liver and white springer, had a hard time adjusting to the puppy. He did little but growl and snap at her for months until she out-grew her fear of him. The two occasionally play together now, but despite being 10 pounds lighter, she torments him constantly. He spends much of his time trying to avoid her.

Although we swore Dot would be our last pup, as she ever-so-slowly matures, we’re having second thoughts. Maybe we will get another one somewhere down the road. They say the pain of childbirth is soon forgotten. So too we hope, is the pain of raising a puppy.

Parker Heinlein is at [email protected]