Spec-the-puppy — Update by popular demand

I’ve been asked to update the puppy story.

Here’s what we know. Spec was born in early December. She was mostly white with a black spot. Now, she is almost as black as she is white. (Below, left, Spec in the garden standing on the compass set in the center of the round grass lawn with the magnolia bed and house in the background.)

I’m getting a little more sleep these nights – sometimes as much as six hours!

When she arrived, Pippa the older dog got kind of mopey. That’s history. Now, they rough-house for hours, and it can get pretty scary. Pippa barks the whole time they are rolling around, biting each other, with a loud, piercing ruff. They almost knocked the couch over. They sleep in the morning, and the noise begins around 7:00 PM. I put on headphones or ear plugs, and turn on closed captions so I can watch The PBS Newshour on TV.

Spec is so bad. As I write this, she is chewing the metal leg of a chair. “Spec sweetheart, NO!” But when she’s asleep, she is angelic. She is so very affectionate, however, I imagined it would be nice to have a lap dog — she’s a head-in-my-lap dog. I don’t stay mad at her for long (12 hours, max)!

She comes when I call her unless she is interested in something else, for example, running in the muck where the canal widens and the Caltha palustris (marsh marigold, right) grows. She comes out, ready to jump on the couch, with black mud up to her tummy, and somehow, on her head. Unlike Pippa, she runs through beds, eats plants, poops wherever she feels like it, and eats sticks (dead or alive). She killed half of the yellow Lonicera sempervirens ‘John Clayton’ (in full bloom now) by biting through a stem as she walked by.

She now weighs 44 pounds – one more pound than Pippa. One time, and quite by accident, they shared the couch (below, left). And the cherry on top, I suppose? Car sickness.

to be continued….