Peanut Butter Puppy

Peanut Butter Puppy

Christina Weigand

Things in my life have gotten a little hectic in the last few weeks and I did not have time to write a post about another author. So I am going to take a break from the series and share a life story. Keep in mind that the two young girls, two and four years old are now 15 and 18, so this happened several years ago.

Never fear in two weeks I will be back with another interesting author for you to learn about.

Image by Sally Wynn from Pixabay 

Recently my 21-year-old daughter purchased a puppy, much to the chagrin of my husband.  In spite of his dissatisfaction, I think it was a good purchase.  My four-year-old daughter and her two-year-old niece are learning some interesting lessons.  The four year old, Ana likes to help feed and walk the puppy.  The two years old, Andi likes to give the puppy treats.  In fact, she would give the dog treats all day long, if we let her.

Both of the girls like to play with the puppy and the puppy likes to play with the girls.  The problem is none of them knows how to communicate how they want to play.  If Ana and Andi run across the yard, the dog, Daisy, thinks the girls want to play tackle and will run after them and tackle them.  Not quite what the girls had in mind.  If Ana waves her arms or fingers in front of Daisy, she thinks it’s a chew toy for her to chew on, again not what Ana had in mind.  If Ana’s skirt it blowing in the wind Daisy thinks it’s time to play tug of war and latches onto Ana’s skirt, again not what Ana had in mind.

If Daisy jumps up and wants to wrestle, the girls squeal and panic, not quite what Daisy had in mind.  If Daisy lies down and the girls descend on her thinking she wants to play, again not what Daisy had in mind.

Trying to housetrain has been real fun.  In fact we have successfully outdoor trained her.  She will go outside if she is outside, but as soon as we bring her in the house, she finds a place to go to the bathroom, usually on the carpet in my family room.  So now we have to figure out how to reverse train her.

Then there was the bath.  We hadn’t bathed her since we brought her home; so to say, the least she was becoming a little fragrant and my husband wouldn’t let her in the house to play with the kids.  We decided the time had come for a bath.  Katie went out and purchased a spray hose that we could attach to the tub faucet.  Katie and I, who are two grown women, could not figure out how to attach this hose to the spout. Katie decided to go on without the hose.  She puts the dog in the tub with Ana and Andi in attendance.  Quickly the dog jumps out of the tub and tries to take off.  Katie catches Daisy and puts her back in the tub.  Quickly she washes and rinses Daisy and finishes just as Daisy jumps out of the tub again, this time shaking off the water all over the bathroom.  Now Daisy is running down the hall with two little girls chasing her.  Trying to catch a wet puppy is like trying to catch a greased pig, nearly impossible.  Soon Daisy is caught though and Katie dries her off and puts her in the family room to watch a movie with us.  Daisy finds an adult lap to sit on and curls up on it until bedtime.

The next day, Daisy is resting on the patio while the girls innocently play on the patio.  Keep in mind that with a two year old and a four year old nothing is ever really innocent.  I am in the kitchen preparing dinner and Katie is nearby doing something.  Ana strolls casually into the kitchen and takes a jar of peanut butter that was left on the counter and goes back to the patio door where she meets Andi and Daisy.  I glance over, see them sitting on the step quietly, and don’t think anything of it.  So they are eating peanut butter from the jar, what are they hurting?  Soon Katie comes out to the kitchen and starts screaming, “What is all over my dog!”  Notice now that it has become her dog any other time it is just the dog.  She runs outside and realizes the girls are covered with peanut butter as well as the dog.  The girls have decided to make a peanut butter puppy.  I start laughing as Katie runs to find a hose so she can clean the dog while I am left to clean her daughter as well as mine and put the peanut butter away.  Soon the mess is cleaned up and we have a good laugh about it.

We have had the puppy for a little over a month now and she has been a lot of fun.  The little girls are learning about responsibility and I am learning patience and how to bite my tongue.  We have had fun, I’m sure that as the dog, and the girls grow and learn we will have many more fun times if we can live through them.  We must remember to keep our sense of humor through it all.  The world will not end because we have a peanut butter puppy or some water on the walls.  Soon they will be grown and gone and peanut butter puppies or skirts that look like tug of war ropes will be a distant memory.  They are the stuff that life is made of.