Dolly

Ok well what happened was the nice rancher lady knew of a puppy whose owners had to move. Her farm dog was the mother of the puppy, and the new owners of the puppy had to move somewhere where they couldn't have the puppy, which was very sad. It was a very good puppy, with a good personality. Supposedly.

The rancher lady had been trying to think of a good farm home for the puppy - because it was several months old and it was already a farm dog, it wouldn't like living in someone's backyard - and she happened to have the same horseshoer, the kindly horseshoer, as the farmer. And she mentioned it to the kindly horseshoer and he said, fatefully, that yes, as a matter of fact, he could think of a good home that needed a really good farm dog. Because he knew of a farm where the only farm dog was an undersized, wayward, incorrigible Boston Terrier - a boston terrier with a long tail, to add insult to injury, and an extensive collection of sweaters - whose usefulness in a farm setting was considerably below zero.

It wasn't very long before we got the bad news that a real dog might be coming to live here.

"A Texas Heeler," the farmer informed us.

The Texas part sounded okay, after all if you refer to my map of the universe you will see that Texas is on it, which proves that it is a real place and that they have credible Nigerian Dwarfs there. The Heeler part did not sound that good. It sounded ominous, in fact. It hinted at a lot of unnecessary exercise, of being obliged to move pointlessly from Point A to Point B. So we took a vote and we voted unanimously, except for Moldy who likes to make new friends and Binky who did not understand the question, that we did not want the Texas Heeler to come.

The Texas Heeler came the next day. That was months ago. It is still here.

I don't know what is wrong with it but it must be something very serious because it is happy every single minute of every single day. It cannot wake up in the morning without thinking immediately: what a beautiful grand day, it will probably be the best one yet!

'Life! The Key Peninsula! This Moment in June!' is what it goes around thinking. Can you even imagine how tiresome this level of exuberance must be for someone of my stature who might at any moment be called upon to give a speech about some matter of grave importance, Swedish Fish or something like that? With this PUPPY in the background lolloping around and rolling in the grass and grinning crazily with delight? Can you?

Its name is Dolly.