POOH
1971 and I was in the UK. A rented gable end house in a row of 18 was our home for the next 2 years. I was working, but in the evenings I really missed having animals around. I thought often of the small dog I left with family so far away. Special permission obtained from the landlord for a dog saw us quickly at the dogs home. Back with us came Pooh.
She was 10 weeks old, tiny and very cute and there are no prizes for guessing how she got her name.
It didn’t take long for the kids in the street to find out we had a dog that had an almost rude word name, and when Pooh was old enough they came knocking at the door all giggly to ask ‘can we take your Pooh for a walk?’ They were allowed to take her to the end of the row and back and I would hear them calling out to other kids, ‘we got Pooh’ and more giggling would float down the street. I feel sure it was not walking the dog they liked so much, rather it was being able to say ‘can we have Pooh’ and later at home, being able to say ‘we had Pooh today’. Sometimes little Pooh would have at least 1/2 a dozen walks in a day.
She grew quite quickly. Her legs first. They got longer and longer and she looked like a puppy on stilts for a while till her body caught up. Her tail was not long but it flipped over her back and formed a complete circle that you could see through, and the whole circle would wave. It always made me smile.
Pooh loved snow. Absolutely loved it. :Until I went to the UK I had lived my entire life in comparatively warm countries so snow was also a fascination to me. The first good snow fall we had, I raced out into our 6 foot by 10 foot yard and excitedly built a snowman. My first ever snowman. I called out to DH to come look and when he opened the door Pooh flew out and dived head first straight into it. She then proceeded to demolish my lovely snowman. It was an all out frenzied attack. She snapped and bit it and flung snow left and right, she dug it with her front feet and in less than half a minute my lovely first ever snowman was nothing but paw prints in the snow. But it was so funny to watch. Killing Mr Snowman became quite a game. I was happy to build as many snowmen as she could demolish. She also loved to catch snow balls and when she caught them they would explode out of each side of her mouth. She would leap and twirl and dance on her back legs to catch them. Such a funny little dog.
The stairs ball game was another favourite. Our little house was a two rooms up two rooms down house, with the stairs separating the two rooms. I would stand at the bottom of the stairs while Pooh raced up to the top and stood waiting, facing the back wall. The ball would be thrown up against the back wall and she would leap up and catch it as it bounced off. Very clever as the landing at the top was tiny. A quick turn, let the ball go, watch it bounce down the stairs and she was ready for the next wall catch. She added variations to the game from time to time also. Sometimes she would only go half way up the stairs and wait for the ball to bounce down to her, and other times she would catch the ball before it reached the wall. When the ball thrower got tired of throwing, she would play by herself by taking the ball to the top, let it go, watch it bounce bounce all the way down, race down, grab it, return to the top and let it go again. This game would go on for hours if allowed.
We travelled quite a lot, and Pooh always travelled with us. A small dog is so easy, and I was amazed at how dog friendly the whole country was. She also spent many happy days at work with DH and would come leaping up the hallway to greet me when she got home and do a little back leg dance to tell me what a wonderful day she had.
Pooh was gone suddenly, through no fault of ours, leaving us shocked and numb. No more dogs I said, too much pain, but the week dragged and it was so quiet in the house that the following weekend saw us outside the dog home……..
PENY came……….
She was a pretty, cuddly, teddy bear of a puppy.
When she had grown, she looked like a Lassie Collie without the big coat. She was the first of my big dogs.
I assumed Peny would love snow. Not so. She hated it. As a puppy she would not walk in it. She would simply refuse to move and it was either drag her crying through it or pick her up. Of course she got picked up. When she got bigger she found she could tippy toe quickly through snow, lifting each leg high off the ground with every step. Absolutely hilarious. There was an eight inch ledge that ran along the kitchen wall toward the back wall of the tiny yard, it was about 2 inches high. When there was snow, Peny was somehow able to balance on it, go toilet and come back inside without getting her feet wet. It was quite a feat and fascinating to watch her.
She loved the car and of course came with us as much as possible. We knew we would be doing a few trips to Scotland and decided that it would a good thing if there was somewhere we could leave Peny if needed on those weekends. I looked at a few boarding kennels and hated them all until I found a very small country kennel run by a lovely older couple. They suggested Peny went for a one night stay for free, and if she stressed I could go straight away and bring her home. Peny was perfectly happy, no stressing, probably because the couple thought she was lovely and she stayed inside the house with them. She would bound out of the car when I took her there and race straight in the house. I never had to book her in, I could just ring up on a Friday morning and let them know Peny was coming in the evening and I would be back to get her late Sunday. Peny always stayed there if we were going to be away and the weather was not good.
She had some funny little quirks. I had a very pretty pot plant. I called it a purse plant as the flowers were just like a tiny purse, the oval shape with a clasp in the middle, type. If Peny was left on her own at home she would get my pretty pot plant and remove it from the pot. I never did see her do it, but she must have been so careful as it was never damaged, just out of it’s pot. It survived to flower many times.
She liked to get under my chair in the living room. I always said to her …you hiding Peny?. As she got bigger, she still loved to hide, but only half of her was able to. I would walk round the room saying ‘where is Peny she must be hiding’ and no matter where she was she would rush over to the chair and wiggle her head and shoulders under and stay there, tail thumping wildly and very visibly on the floor until I said ‘oh there you are hiding under the chair’. Out she would come and jump round in great excitement. She also did that when we had been out. She would be under the chair hiding when we came in the door and she would stay there, while I examined the de-potted plant and did the ‘where is Peny she must be hiding’ bit before she would wiggly her head and shoulders out and excitedly greet us.
Peny didn't know she was a big dog, and thought she should be able to sit on any knee that was offering. She couldn't fit on my knee in the chair, parts of her hung off like tan coloured sticks, but she did fit lovely on DH's knee. She was very well mannered at the table.
The time came for us to move on, back to my home country. We made all the arrangements for our travel and for our belongings and I then set about arranging for Peny to travel. I searched for weeks, tried everywhere and everyway available but always the cost added up to nearly twice the amount of savings we had left. Finally I had to accept that Peny could not come with us to our new life in New Zealand. I was heart broken, It had never occurred to me that Peny would not be able to come. So we did the next best thing for her. We found a new forever home with friends who loved her and would cherish her the way we did. It was with a very heavy heart and feelings of having failed her that I delivered Peny and her belongings plus the pretty pot plant to her new home.
We heard from her new family for a couple of years and we knew Peny was happy and well loved.
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