Notes from a Small Dog: De-Stuffing…

Good morning! It’s a cold, grey Sunday here. I’ve taken her out  for her walk and let her make my breakfast. She’s been writing stuff ever since. Honestly, she is never away from the computer for two minutes these days… how am I supposed to write a decent note to you when she hogs the thing? I’ve been quite insistent about it… I owe it to my readers, of course, to write occasionally. I’ve explained this to her, and even tried to forcibly occupy her seat. But to no avail. She mutters about duty and responsibility and things. I know she has work to do, but there is a limit. I have tried everything I can think of to distract her, resorting finally to desperate measures.

Well, she’s busy for a while now, working her magic. I’m not quite sure what she does with the stringy stuff and the sharp little silver thing, she won’t let me close enough to see. But every time I pull the stuffing out of the duck she quietly gathers it all up and, as if by magic, the duck reappears good as new a little while later. So I de-stuffed it again for her. It will keep her occupied for a while.

I keep unstuffing it, just so she can practise… and so I can work out how she does it… I do try to be helpful like that. I remember the first time. Well, how was I to know what the inside of a duck looked like? And it was such fun. Then, when I looked around, it seemed to be everywhere…There was nothing I could do about it really. I tried hiding it under the sofa, but I’d barely started when she came home and caught me. I mean, she taught me to clean up after myself when I was little. Gave me a flower pot to put my ball away in. How was I to know I wasn’t supposed to borrow the other ones.. the ones she’d put the baby plants in?

Anyway, I digress. I was really expecting to be in trouble for the stuffing… But she just laughed and pointed the camera at me again. She does that a lot. I’ve got used to it now, so as soon as she picks it up I stop whatever I’m doing and pose for her. She doesn’t seem to appreciate that the way she should and just sighs and puts the camera away again.

I know all about cameras. They were one of the first bits of your technology I learned about. I was barely a day old the first time one was pointed at me. And it hasn’t stopped since. Mum explained them a bit, how you catch memories with them.  I don’t remember much about Mum, or the rest of my family, but I do have some of your photos.

My Dad looks nice, don’t you think? Nice smile. A handsome chap. I never knew him, of course. He’d stayed with Mum when she was waiting for us to be born. When some humans found my parents in the waste ground they took them both where it was warm and dry.  They had run away together as Mum was very unhappy where she lived and wasn’t treated very well. Mum said she had been sent on a boat to where I was born.

She, the two-legged, hairless one, says that’s a beautiful story. I think she likes to know I was made from love. Love matters to her. She  seems to think that as long as we have that, everything else falls into place. I suppose she has a point. I wouldn’t make sure she didn’t overeat by sharing her food, or throw my toys for her so often, or even protect the house from postmen and pigeons if I didn’t care about her. The cat next door is a different ball game though… ’nuff said.

I don’t know much about my parents really. Mum was an aristocrat, of course, a setter and very beautiful. Dad looks a bit of a charmer, don’t you think? Sort of a red haired retriever type of guy… but my markings tell a tale. I have collie colours, so there must be some stories to tell about our ancestors. The charm of the Irish, of course, runs in my blood, ’cause that’s where they both came from.

When I think about it, I suppose that makes me almost an exotic  foreigner, even though I was born here. Not that it is important. I was born in another county too from where I live now… so was she, for that matter. Everybody seems to move about so much. But home is where love is… where the people I love are close. And it wouldn’t matter where that was. Not to me. All I need is somewhere warm for her to sleep, somewhere to take her for walks and  somewhere to cuddle and I’m happy.

It is an odd thing, this love business. You don’t need a suitcase to move it, you can take it everywhere you go and the odd thing is that the more of it you have, the lighter you are. And the more of it you give away, the more you seem to have.  I don’t need much apart from love.

And the occasional stuffed duck, of course.

Tiring this typing lark… wonder if that’s why she paints her claws red? Does it help? I must investigate.

Anyway.. time for a nap. Think I’ll get my head down.

Love,

Ani