Trust is tricky...

Myrtle has been trying to teach me about trust.  It is a tricky, tricky lesson to learn.

Take tonight.  Every night, when it is not too cold to run the fountain on the front porch, Myrtle adds water to it so that the pump doesn't run dry.  The fountain is set in a shallow concrete birdbath bowl because the deeper fountain bowl was broken by a visitor many years before I came to live with Myrtle.

Some nights, Myrtle will stay out on the porch for longer than I wish to be separated from her in order to also water the plants on the porch.  I will stand, paws and nose pressed to the glass of the storm door, whining and whimpering and waiting for my Myrtle to return ... basically begging to let me join her.

Throughout this summer, Myrtle has been working on trust with me, allowing me to sit with her on the bench when she is spending time on the porch savoring the fountain and wind chimes and GREEN growing things.  She used to hold me in one of the rocking chairs.  But because she knows I like the bench best, Myrtle has been letting me sit there, without the awful harness and leash, looking about to my heart's content.

Because we are in disagreement over my protestations of interlopers big and small crossing before MY HOME, often some of our time on the porch is spent working out this disagreement.  By working out, I mean Myrtle hushes me and disciplines me and tries (rather unsuccessfully) to train me to protest less, if not at all.

Over the past few months, Myrtle has started letting me walk out the door, trot across the porch, and hop up on the bench all by myself, instead of carrying me out with her and setting me down.  Because I have gotten ever so good at doing this, Myrtle had finally given in to my deepest wish to always be together as much as we when she is home and started letting me sit on the bench whilst she does her watering.

Life was good.
Until I blew it.
Trust is tricky ... and easily lost.

To my defense, I will say that it is not my fault Myrtle's trust in my obedience to remain on the bench when she is walking about the porch was broken.  Nope.  It was all Myrtle's NEMESIS' fault!

You see, there is this black cat that hangs out on the front porch.  Of course, I feel compelled to protest his trespassing, but my protestations, no matter how loud or how long, bother him not.  Instead, he happily perches atop Myrtle's beloved fountain, drinking water and breaking the fronds of her beloved tiny fern growing on top of the fountain and tearing off her beloved tiny bits of moss she's been encouraging to grow on the fountain with his claws as he leaps back to the ground.  Yes, Myrtle protests his presence as well.

She yells at him.
She sprinkles Cayenne pepper all over the fountain.
She chases him away.
She bats him with a broom.
She squirts him in the face with the spray bottle.

Myrtle's NEMESIS remains.

Well, as you very well may have guessed at this point, tonight, while Myrtle was watering the plants and trusting me to remain on the bench, her NEMESIS came sauntering up the steps.  What's a fellow to do?  I LOVE Myrtle and it GRIEVES me when she mourns over broken fronds and bits of scattered moss.  So, I promptly leapt off the bench and chased Myrtle's NEMESIS away.

I have never heard Myrtle call my name in quite that way.

Before I knew it, Myrtle had bounded after me, scooped me up, and shoved me back through the front door.  In no uncertain terms, my puppy momma made clear to me that I had completely and utterly lost my bench sitting privileges.  She is not certain when I will be able to go back outside with her, but I will not be going outside under my own power when we do.

Trust is a tricky thing to learn and to practice.  There are so very many ways trust can be broken ... say, for example ... if you had been trusted to remain on the couch next to food and couldn't resist cleaning the plate before Myrtle was done with it even though you had been able to resist dozens of times before.  That kind of trust also has to be rebuilt.

Of course, you could note that each time I let my puppy momma sheer my curls, I am trusting her ... because curls are not the only thing she sometimes cuts with her scissors.  But when I tried to bring up that point tonight Myrtle wouldn't listen.

She's still trembling.

I don't think it is because of fronds and moss.  Her NEMESIS never made it that far.  In any case, I have my paws wrapped around her neck and my head tucked beneath her chin as she is typing for me.  I feel a few snores coming on, but I am trying to hold out to make sure she gets this write.  I mean right.


This is my life with Myrtle.  Amos Adams signing off!

The Cowering Interloper...

The new FEARSOME BEAST is back.  Last night, I found him perched before the bench at the back corner of the yard.  I barked at him.  I charged him.  I threatened him within an inch of his life.  He did not move an inch.  Finally, I peed on him.

Yes.  Peed. On. The FEARSOME BEAST.

He didn't move!  Hah!  I discovered THE TRUTH.  That creature Myrtle calls a possum is not actually a FEARSOME BEAST.  No!  He is a COWERING INTERLOPER!  A chicken in a possum's body! Hah!

I think I will drink some extra water just in case he comes back again.  That will show him who's BOSS of the Great Outdoors.


This is my life with Myrtle.  Amos Adams signing off!

How can a fellow get a break...

What is the world coming to?  Just when I could breathe a sigh of contentment about my life in the back yard—at least until Myrtle actually goes through with her mad scheme to create a rock river in the bed—I find my refuge invaded once again!

LOOK AT THIS FEARSOME BEAST!

I barked at him.
I jumped at him.
I charged him.
I tried to nip his ... tail.
I chided him.
I chastised him.
I berated him.
I insulted him.
I threatened him.
I bulled him.
I ridiculed him.
I leered at him.
I scoffed at him.

Nothing worked at all.  There he sat, like a statue, ignoring me ...acting like I did not even exist!  THE NERVE OF HIM!

Why?  Why must I suffer so??


This is my life with Myrtle.  Amos Adams signing off!

Myrtle needs lessons...

Myrtle needs lessons in the proper care and feeding of puppy dogs.  You see, my beloved Aunt Marie and Uncle Paul came to visit me today.  Uncle Paul understands the needs of a growing puppy dog in a proper sort of fashion.  You see, not only does he let me clean his dishes, but Uncle Paul actually deliberately leaves bits and pieces of his meal for me to finish up.

Yes ... even bacon!

Have I mentioned just how much I love Uncle Paul?

At least my puppy momma understands the need for a proper pillow.  A puppy dog needs his sleep.  Lots of sleep.


This is my life with Myrtle. Amos Adams signing off!

It's all her fault...

It's all Myrtle's fault that I haven't been posting with any sort of regularity.  I keep telling her that I have this great big audience all rabid about hearing from me, but she doesn't really get just how popular I am out there in the great big world.  Okay, how great I might become if only I were given the chance.

What is my biggest news??  THE FEARSOME BEAST IS GONE!!!!!!!!!

Myrtle gets all weepy about it, so I have worked to contain my joy to moments when she's otherwise engaged.  Mostly, it is her fault, but I would never admit that to her.

Here is the FEARSOME BEAST when he first invaded my yard.  For over TWO years, he has hopped around the place as if he owned it.  No matter how many times I chased him out into the Great Beyond (as in beyond the fence), that cheeky fellow would sneak back when I was taking my ease indoors.

No place in the back yard was safe from his trespassing.  He even fouled the grass without a single thought for a puppy dog who is already stressed enough about venturing out onto said grass.  No thought of me AT ALL!  Instead, the FEARSOME BEAST would hop about the place as if he were the one supporting Myrtle, the one who keeps roof overhead, day in and day out.  The one snuggling with her, laying beside her when she's writhing in pain, the one who dries her tears, the one who kisses her awake when she faints.

I cannot find an earlier photo, but here is one taken last summer, when Myrtle applied her new (free) hedge trimmers to the grossly overgrown burning bushes.  They were near the windows up top, so you can see it was a bit of severe trimming.  In any case, what you can see are the remnants of the Snow on the Mountain ground cover.  The stuff gets about two feet heigh at its peak, and so makes an excellent hiding place for the FEARSOME BEAST.  Myrtle systematically ripped out the ground cover from the bed along the fence (you can see some bare ground) and the bed on the other side of the burning bushes that is in front of the back porch and wraps to the back steps.  But she PURPOSELY left the middle section so that the FEARSOME BEAST could have food and safe harbor!  Oh, the bitterness of betrayal.

Well, much to my utter JOY, this area is where Myrtle recently worked out some of her upsettedness.  Despite her increasingly failing health, she took shovel to hand and dug out all the ground cover that she had allowed to remain before the burning bushes.  By the time she was done, Myrtle filled up five yard waste bags, laid out 144 square feet of landscaping material, and dumped and spread twelve bags of hardwood shredded mulch.  My puppy momma was filthy, trembling, and had fainted three times, but her tears had stopped.  I, of course, was leaping about the entire time she worked ... in my mind if not in my body.  With each shovel full of chopped up plants, Myrtle was ensuring my total, complete, and (hopefully)  permanent victory over the FEARSOME BEAST, for neither of us has spotted him since.

At the end, she collected all the rocks in the others beds that were being crowded out by her thyme plants and plopped them down in the empty space.  I think they look just grand there, but Myrtle told me they were just a way to help her think about what she would like in all that empty space.  Being a kind fellow, I have watered each and every one of the rocks rather faithfully, as well as tended to the liquid needs of the burning bushes.  Oh, how I savor frolicking about the FEARSOME BEAST'S former refuge!

I have been robbed of my joy, though.  And it's all Myrtle's fault.   You see, my puppy momma announced that she has decided that she will be creating a rock river, wending from the back steps, around the pink floral bush, and on over to the empty space.  WE DON'T NEED A ROCK RIVER!

"Why," you ask, "am I objecting to a rock river?"  "Why has my joy been stolen by my puppy momma?"  Well, this is why:

ANOTHER FEARSOME BEAST!  In fact, Myrtle rather cruelly announced that it is her plan to invite many FEARSOME BEASTS in the form of rock turtles, frogs, and toads living in the rock river.

Again, WE DON'T NEED A ROCK RIVER!  AND WE CERTAINLY DON'T NEED TURTLES, FROGS, AND TOADS!!

Surely you agree?  Right??  Right!!!!

SIGH.  Myrtle cannot harvest the rocks from her friends yard until the current spate of what Myrtle calls stinking-hot-days ends.  Once it does, Myrtle plans to fill up buckets with the old rock cover in her friend's beds until the river is complete.  After that, THE INVASION BEGINS.

Sometimes ... sometimes I wonder if Myrtle really loves me.


This is my life with Myrtle.  Amos Adams signing off!

Just to prove my words true...

In case you think I was exaggerating about how miserly my puppy momma is with treats, yesterday I earned the final faux bacon bit.  You know, the back bit from the bag of treats my beloved Aunt Leslie brought to me in February that I wrote about in March.  February ... as in that teeny, tiny bag of treats were doled out in miserly fashion over a period of SIX MONTHS!!

I am not even sure I want to post the treats I am earning now.  You see, there was a puppy visitor to the house.  A very tiny puppy who has very tiny treats.  Her treats are these pea-sized brown blobs.  Well, her puppy momma left them behind, so Myrtle declared that one of them will be my reward each time I do my major business in the out of doors.  PEA-SIZED!  I'm a gazillion times larger than that black and white ball of fluff that came for a visit.  Don't you think that my treats should be a gazillion times larger than hers?

Can you spell:  D  O  U  B  L  E    S  T  A  N  D  A  R  D?

Myrtle has no end of ways to reward herself.  She will use a Taco Bell gift card or have an extra Dr Pepper.  She will fill a bowl with enough scoops of Blue Bell to serve three people.  Or maybe she will buy a red velvet cake from the store.  Really, most of her rewards involve large portions of tastiness, whilst her supposedly beloved puppy dog has to make do on crumbs.


This is my life with Myrtle.  Amos Adams signing off!

A lesson for Myrtle...

Myrtle could learn a lesson from my beloved Aunt Leslie: A proper understanding of the giving of treats.

You see, Myrtle does not really give me treats.  Recently, a Facebook friend of her recommended giving me biscuits. I wanted to knock Myrtle off the keyboard to let that woman know how deprived I am.  Dog biscuits?  I don't even know what those are.  My puppy momma, in two long years of raising me, has never bought me a single box.  Not one.

Myrtle would like for me to tell you that there is a reason for this, but her reasons are specious.  Myrtle says that the reason she does not buy and give me dog biscuits is because she lets me clean all the plates and will even give me a bit or two from her own meal.  She said I do not need biscuits.  She wrong.
All dogs need dog biscuits. Period.  All other reasoning regarding dog biscuits is false!

Myrtle does give me treats, after a fashion, but only really, really, really teeny tiny ones.  Here are ones that she bought most recently in a small jelly jar.  Believe it or not, they are the largest treats she has ever purchased for me.  I suppose I should be grateful.

However, the only way for me to actually get to consume these treats is if I do my major business out of doors.  That's it.  Nothing else.  So, once or twice a day, I can "earn" a mere morsel.  The brown squares and the orange circles, both soft, disappear with just a single bite.  The microscopic bones are crunchy, so they take another chew.    Really, I barely taste them because one or two chews and they are gone.

But is that really what treats are for? I mean, how is it a "treat" if I have to perform to "earn" one? After all, a treat is "an event or item that is out of the ordinary and gives great pleasure."

Trust me, doing major business out of doors is neither out of the ordinary or gives me great pleasure.  It is normal, ordinary, customary.  It should not be a requirement to receive a treat.

Now, my beloved Aunt Leslie knows this.  Nearly every single time she comes to visit, even if she has run an errand for my puppy momma, Aunt Leslie brings me treats. She either brings me a new baby or she brings me tasty treats.  And not only does she bring me tasty treats, she opens the container and gives me many of them right away.  One. Two.  Five.  Six.  Ten. Twelve.  There is no requirements for me to "earn" Aunt Leslie's treats.  She just heaps them upon me unconditionally.  SIGH.

These are the last treats that Aunt Leslie brought.  She bought them because she knows that Myrtle is very, very selfish about her bacon.  She never shares it with me.  DOUBLE SIGH.

So, Aunt Leslie bought me my very own bacon, puppy dog bacon if you will.  She bought it for me, brought it to me, opened the container, and proceeded to give me an entire handful of the tasty treats. Have I mentioned that I love my Aunt Leslie??

Myrtle?  Well, after Aunt Leslie left, my puppy momma put the bacon treats in the jar and closed the lid.  It has not been opened since.

Myrtle's reasoning is that I should finish up my other treats before starting in on these.  She also told me that they really should be broken into smaller pieces.  Pieces?  Who breaks bacon into pieces?

I love my puppy momma.  I honestly do.  I just wish she would learn the proper understanding on treats from my Aunt Leslie.  To put it in terms Myrtle might grasp:  Treats are Gospel, not Law.


This is my life with Myrtle.  Amos Adams signing off.

What not to say...

This afternoon, Myrtle awoke to find that I had pressed my forehead against hers on the pillow, my curls tangled with her own locks.  I thought she would find it comforting, especially since my puppy momma (for no reason I can fathom) just loves my snoring.  However, the FIRST words out of her mouth were: "Your breath stinks!"

Without even giving me a kiss or thanking me for snuggling with her or showing the slightest bit of attention to me, Myrtle rolled over, reached for her computer, and logged on to Amazon.com, muttering about ordering toothpaste and a toothbrush for me.

SIGH.

You know, Myrtle has terrible nightmares, and I work real hard to give her lots and lots and lots of different kinds of comfort in bed.  I chew bones on her belly, I press my back against hers, I curl up at her feet, I hold onto her arm with my paws, I sleep with my face in the palm of her outstretched hand, and I serve as a pillow for her.  And, yet, after working that hard and even thinking up a brand new way to comfort her, my reward was an insult!
 
I do not feel much loved today.


This is my life with Myrtle.  Amos Adams signing off.

Wordsworth is right...

In his poem "Michael," Wordsworth has a bit that reads:
 
There is a comfort in the strength of love;
’Twill make a thing endurable, which else

Would overset the brain, or break the heart: 

(450-452)

Love for my puppy momma Myrtle is all that got me through the recent trip we took.  That's me there, on the far bed, loving Myrtle with my whole being so as not to end up with an overset brain when she returned.

What you cannot see is this very-nice-but-still-terrifying woman who came to stay with me in the hotel room whilst my puppy momma went to her father's funeral.  The woman was kind and quiet.  In fact, when she came into the room, she immediately sat down on the floor, put out some treats, and turned her face away from me.  Like I said, nice woman.  But she was also a stranger.  And from all the time Myrtle spent in front of a mirror prior to the woman arriving, I knew my puppy momma was going to be leaving me.  These days, Myrtle is rarely in front of a mirror.

I don't remember my birth father or birth mother.  I don't remember my brothers and sister either, but Myrtle says I do.  She says I remember them each time I drape myself atop her.  Draping really is comfortable.  I am not sure why she thinks I learned that from my siblings, but I try not to argue much with Myrtle.  It upsets her so.

As you can see on the bed in the photo above and the one here, Myrtle brought lots of pillows and blankets from home so that we would both be comfortable in a strange bed.  The woman who came to stay with me was willing to play with me, but it was all I could do to wait for Myrtle's return.  I had my pillows and blankets and my babies, but I didn't have Myrtle.  I prefer her to all the rest.  I definitely prefer her to being alone, especially being alone with strangers, even if the stranger is a nice person who knew better than to stick her hand in my face and scare me more.  

Seriously, why do folk think I want them sticking their hands in my face when we meet?  Everyone does it.  Most do it even after my puppy momma explains that I do not like it.  I guess it is some sort of weird human ritual I will never be able to understand.  Frankly, it is one I think ought to be discarded.

To go to Myrtle's father's funeral, we ended up driving in the car for four days.  I had not been in the car in just over a year.  So, I found that part of the trip a tad discombobulating.  For a long while, Myrtle and I had a disagreement over where I would be sitting.  I am sure you can guess who proved the wiser head.  Sometimes I wonder just how much longer it is going to take to properly train my puppy momma.

Two of the four days were spent riding in the car with my beloved Aunt Bettina.  I've known her almost as long as I have known Myrtle, even though I do not get to see her all that often.  This is a photo of when we first met.  Isn't she beautiful?  Am I not just the most adorable little fellow on the planet?  

Pretty much, Aunt Bettina is perfect.  She loves me and lets me give her kisses and is a great snuggler.  Really, she only has two small flaws.  For one, she is a bit parsimonious about her food.  [Notice I did not use the word greedy.  Frugality is the kindest construction I can think of to explain why she would not want to share freely with me.]  As for the second flaw, Aunt Bettina had absolutely no desire to have me in her lap whilst she was driving us in the car.  Given that it was mighty cold outside, I am just plain flummoxed as to why it is that she would not want a lap warmer or a fluffy pillow rest for her hands.  I tried very hard to convince her of my value, but my Aunt Bettina can be rather firm in her opinions.  I, on the other hand, am the epitome of flexibility!

This was me loving Myrtle some more.  Perhaps, this was harder than loving her in the hotel room.  My, are gas stations terrifying places!  

Veritable hoards of terrifying people walk right past the car, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.  For some reason, my puppy momma did not want me to pump gas with her or go inside to fetch tasty tidbits to keep her and Aunt Bettina sated whilst traveling down the road.  I had yet another opportunity to gird my loins and stifle my fear.

Sadly, gas stations are all about about people and not puppies.  At least, as far as I can tell.  After all, Myrtle did not bring any tasty tidbits for me when she came back to the car.  She also was disinclined to share her tasty tidbits.

I will say that what I disliked most about the trip were the terrifying folk who forced my puppy momma to hand over money in order to drive on their roads.  They were entirely too close to us for my comfort.  I tried really hard to defend and to protect Myrtle for them, but for some reason she did not care for my loving attention.  In fact, on the way home, Myrtle trussed me up like a chicken for the oven so that I could not get near those folk.  I cannot fathom how this could be so, but one big, burly man took exception to my loving defense of my puppy momma and switched sides of the road with a small woman.

Mostly, I will say that funeral trips are about hours traveling, hours being alone, and hours and hours of weeping.  Actually, Myrtle has been wailing as well as weeping.  Her whole body shakes with her tears and she sometimes has difficulty breathing.  Hours will go by, sometimes even days now, where she is my normal puppy momma, and then the crying starts up again.  When she cries, Myrtle also does a lot of squeezing me tight. 

I will say that I have found loving someone is hard, very hard, because it means a lot of worrying.  I worry about Myrtle so much that I need extra naps just to recover.  I worry about her when she is in the shower.  Sometimes she falls in there, but often I worry because I know she is crying in there.  We both pretend, when she gets out, that there is only water on her face.  I worried at the toll booths and at the gas station.  I worried with her driving so much.  And I most definitely worried about her when she was at the funeral.  I was nearly overset with worry then.

But, like Wordsworth wrote, love is a powerful thing.  It can help you do more than you thought could do, be more than you thought you were.  If you had told me that I would stay with a stranger in a strange room in a strange city for hours on end, I would have told you that you were just plain nuts.  But it happened.  I did.  And I survived.

Life with my puppy momma has changed.  She is more tired.  She is weaker. And she is more ... fragile.  She often clings to me as if she things I am going to disappear right before her eyes.  Of course, I supposed I should admit that were she not clinging to me so fiercely, I would be holding on to her.  Living in this world is hard.  There are Fearsome Beasts and GREEN grass and now road trips and funerals.

I have asked and asked and asked her to write, but always she would say that another time would be a better one.  I told her today that perhaps there will be no better times, since they never seem to come. I told her that perhaps we need to get better at living in the not-so-much-better times.  And I told her that I wanted to start writing down our days together again.

The more I think on it, I believe it was love that made my puppy momma able to keep that pit bull from killing me.  I believe it is love that got us back on the streets when she could still walk.  I know it was love that made me face my fear long enough for her to go to the funeral.  And I am certain it is love that made Myrtle give me my first taste of bacon today.

Without love, this would world would be too hard.  Our minds and bodies would be too broken to get through a single day, much less than the now two years I have lived with my puppy momma.  

This is my life with Myrtle.  Amos Adams signing off!