Bringing Neea-Kha Home
Back to work Monday morning - worrying about this tiny pup amidst six large pups, praying she'd be okay. Monday afternoon, I got a call from the dog man... Hey, we're wondering if you can come and pick up your pup this Thursday; me 'n the old lady wanna go to Wasaga for the weekend and we don't want the pups to be here alone. I immediately said yes, we'd be there Thursday evening. Then I called Greg at work and informed him. Against all conventional wisdom (of which we each had a tiny bit sometimes), we decided that since they were weaned and had little access to mama dog anyways, we might as well get her Thursday. We were both able to move our vacation plans back -- I would be home with the pup for five weeks, Greg for two of those weeks. I left work Thursday with great relief and the promise to my pal Brenda that, yes I would call her if I had any questions. The two hour ride from Toronto seemed endless, but finally we got home, grabbed a small blanket we had bought for Neea-Kha and headed out to pick up our puppy. The purpose of the blanket was to rub along the mother dog, bringing her scent home for the pup. (Didn't work out that way.)
As we walked to the back yard, a man came out carrying a little pup in the crook of his arm. I said "Greg, he's got our puppy" but Greg said no - that's not our dog, ours didn't have blue eyes. I argued that I thought all puppies had blue eyes when they were born, but he insisted this was not our pup. As the man walked to his car, this little puppy peered around from the crook of his arm and stared right at me. I'd swear she knew she was ours! I told Greg and pulled on him to get the pup before the man took off in his car but he just impatiently shook me off and headed to the backyard. The little girl was just coming out of the gate with a little friend and asked which dog we had bought. I said the black and white female and she just spun into action. "Oh no," she said to her friend ,"we gave away the wrong dog". Her friend ran to the back yard, threw another dog at her, and she tore out into the street where the man had just turned his car around and was driving away. She stood in front of the car and waved him down. When he stopped the car, she just opened the back door, threw in the other pup and grabbed ours. This all happened so fast that we didn't have time to react to this little dynamo running out to flag down a moving car. She apologized profusely and handed me the pup -- who I wasn't letting out of my grasp; we paid her the balance and rode home in silence - Greg no doubt wondering why I recognized his pup and he hadn't. That was a sign of things to come. As I held her on my lap in the car, she stuck her little tongue out and gave me a small lick on the face. Aw, that wasn't so bad!
When we walked into our home, I put Neea-Kha down on the floor of the kitchen/diningroom. It was a very large room and she walked the full-length of that room. I heard her breathe a huge sigh and watched her tiny body just totally relax - like - "Ahhhhh, what a relief to get away from that bunch". Greg went into the livingroom to talk to Dancer, making sure the door was closed tightly behind him. It would be the one room the dog wouldn't be allowed in. I set about getting food ready for Greg's dog. The canned puppy food didn't seem nearly as bad as I thought it would. As I was about to dish it up for her, she squatted and left a tiny little turd on the floor. Greg walked into the kitchen, spotted the opened food tin and me picking up dog poo and it was like "who are you and what did you do with my wife?" Well, she'll only be on soft food for a few more weeks, it's no big deal; and it was only a small hard turd anyway.
As we went about preparing our supper, Neea-Kha just walked around that huge expanse of floor - not sniffing or checking anything out - just in awe of all that floor space. I knelt down and said "come" and she immediately turned around and came to me. Greg sounded so disappointed as he reflected that it looked like she was going to be my dog. I assured him that, no - she was his dog and would have come to him just as quickly if he had been the one to call her. He wasn't convinced and we eventually decided she would probably end up owning both of us.
We spent the evening quietly playing with her, watching her run around on her tiny little puppy legs, falling over and rolling around the floor. We decided to leave the huge backyard until the next day, and just acclimate her to her living quarters. We showed her where her bed was, and she took to that right away, content to lay there and chew on the stuffed toys we'd bought. Then bedtime... turned the radio on to soft music for her, tucked her into her bed, shut off all the lights but one small nightlight, went to our bedroom and closed the door. All was quiet for the first ten minutes. Then the whining started - first from the far-away kitchen, then closer, then right under our bedroom door. Soft, pathetic little cries ooh,ooh,ooh,oooohh. Broke my heart but Greg assured me she'd settle down soon. He promptly fell asleep, leaving me to listen to that poor little puppy crying. We had gone to bed around 10:00 and by 2 a.m., there was no sign that the crying was going to stop anytime soon. I got up and laid down in the hallway with her where she proceeded to crawl all over me -- there's no way she was going to sleep! Finally, I picked her up and put her in her bed, walked back to the bedroom, closed the door and was just nodding off when.....yep, you guessed it. Let her cry a bit then finally got up and repeated the whole scenario again. This kept on until my early-bird husband got up at 6 a.m., at which time I announced it was now my bedtime. Second night, more of the same. Third night I waited 'til she started whining under our door and suggested that maybe we should just move her bed into our room. We both knew we didn't want her on our bed, but why couldn't she just sleep in the bedroom? We settled on putting up a makeshift bed with a soft, lofty quilt and invited her to lay down there. She didn't even bother, just went back to the kitchen and did her little puppy run out there. I'm not sure she even came back into the bedroom, I went right to sleep -- not a whine or a cry out of her. She just wanted to know she could come in if she chose to. If that little puppy ever slept, I never saw her. She was on the go from the time we got up in the morning 'til the time we went to sleep.
As we walked to the back yard, a man came out carrying a little pup in the crook of his arm. I said "Greg, he's got our puppy" but Greg said no - that's not our dog, ours didn't have blue eyes. I argued that I thought all puppies had blue eyes when they were born, but he insisted this was not our pup. As the man walked to his car, this little puppy peered around from the crook of his arm and stared right at me. I'd swear she knew she was ours! I told Greg and pulled on him to get the pup before the man took off in his car but he just impatiently shook me off and headed to the backyard. The little girl was just coming out of the gate with a little friend and asked which dog we had bought. I said the black and white female and she just spun into action. "Oh no," she said to her friend ,"we gave away the wrong dog". Her friend ran to the back yard, threw another dog at her, and she tore out into the street where the man had just turned his car around and was driving away. She stood in front of the car and waved him down. When he stopped the car, she just opened the back door, threw in the other pup and grabbed ours. This all happened so fast that we didn't have time to react to this little dynamo running out to flag down a moving car. She apologized profusely and handed me the pup -- who I wasn't letting out of my grasp; we paid her the balance and rode home in silence - Greg no doubt wondering why I recognized his pup and he hadn't. That was a sign of things to come. As I held her on my lap in the car, she stuck her little tongue out and gave me a small lick on the face. Aw, that wasn't so bad!
When we walked into our home, I put Neea-Kha down on the floor of the kitchen/diningroom. It was a very large room and she walked the full-length of that room. I heard her breathe a huge sigh and watched her tiny body just totally relax - like - "Ahhhhh, what a relief to get away from that bunch". Greg went into the livingroom to talk to Dancer, making sure the door was closed tightly behind him. It would be the one room the dog wouldn't be allowed in. I set about getting food ready for Greg's dog. The canned puppy food didn't seem nearly as bad as I thought it would. As I was about to dish it up for her, she squatted and left a tiny little turd on the floor. Greg walked into the kitchen, spotted the opened food tin and me picking up dog poo and it was like "who are you and what did you do with my wife?" Well, she'll only be on soft food for a few more weeks, it's no big deal; and it was only a small hard turd anyway.
As we went about preparing our supper, Neea-Kha just walked around that huge expanse of floor - not sniffing or checking anything out - just in awe of all that floor space. I knelt down and said "come" and she immediately turned around and came to me. Greg sounded so disappointed as he reflected that it looked like she was going to be my dog. I assured him that, no - she was his dog and would have come to him just as quickly if he had been the one to call her. He wasn't convinced and we eventually decided she would probably end up owning both of us.
We spent the evening quietly playing with her, watching her run around on her tiny little puppy legs, falling over and rolling around the floor. We decided to leave the huge backyard until the next day, and just acclimate her to her living quarters. We showed her where her bed was, and she took to that right away, content to lay there and chew on the stuffed toys we'd bought. Then bedtime... turned the radio on to soft music for her, tucked her into her bed, shut off all the lights but one small nightlight, went to our bedroom and closed the door. All was quiet for the first ten minutes. Then the whining started - first from the far-away kitchen, then closer, then right under our bedroom door. Soft, pathetic little cries ooh,ooh,ooh,oooohh. Broke my heart but Greg assured me she'd settle down soon. He promptly fell asleep, leaving me to listen to that poor little puppy crying. We had gone to bed around 10:00 and by 2 a.m., there was no sign that the crying was going to stop anytime soon. I got up and laid down in the hallway with her where she proceeded to crawl all over me -- there's no way she was going to sleep! Finally, I picked her up and put her in her bed, walked back to the bedroom, closed the door and was just nodding off when.....yep, you guessed it. Let her cry a bit then finally got up and repeated the whole scenario again. This kept on until my early-bird husband got up at 6 a.m., at which time I announced it was now my bedtime. Second night, more of the same. Third night I waited 'til she started whining under our door and suggested that maybe we should just move her bed into our room. We both knew we didn't want her on our bed, but why couldn't she just sleep in the bedroom? We settled on putting up a makeshift bed with a soft, lofty quilt and invited her to lay down there. She didn't even bother, just went back to the kitchen and did her little puppy run out there. I'm not sure she even came back into the bedroom, I went right to sleep -- not a whine or a cry out of her. She just wanted to know she could come in if she chose to. If that little puppy ever slept, I never saw her. She was on the go from the time we got up in the morning 'til the time we went to sleep.