Fable – 13 September 2014

Fable is trying her hand at writing fables this week. Her biggest challenge is coming up with the moral to the story. If she didn’t have to come up with that there would be a lot more fables to tell. I’m wondering if she should just write her stories and see if someone else can help her with what the fable teaches?

The Ice Cube and the X-pen – by Fable

I was so hot and panting this afternoon after a fun romp in the big grassy place. My new mom put me in my x-pen and then gave me a special treat. A rectangular toy with almost no color and it was so cold! She called it an ice cube. I loved the way it shot across the wood floor every time I punched it with my paws. It is the best feeling watching it sail across the floor. I hit is so hard that it broke in two and then I had two toys. Double joy! But oh the anguish when both my ice cubes got stuck behind the back of the x-pen. I couldn’t help but cry out in my disappointment. Then joy of joy, mom crawled into my x-pen and saved my ice cubes. I had so much fun playing with them. Then I realized that my new toys kept getting smaller and small and first one disappeared and then the other. But it wasn’t as painful as when I could see them but not reach them. So all pups and dogs out there, enjoy your toys while you can. You never know when they might disappear, like my ice cubes did today.

I learned to go up the stair within 24 hours of being in my new home. That was way easy. I watch my big sister Emma and used my natural jumping ability. It only took a few tries to master that direction. But down, that was getting me. I couldn’t even bring myself to go to the edge of the first step. I tried but something always stopped me about a foot back. No amount of self talk would get me to move. My mom would pick me up and carry me to the bottom step and set me down so I could practice. That wasn’t bad. Then we progressed to two steps up and that took lots of positive self talk to get my feet to move. I wished big sister Emma was here so I could watch the way she went down stairs. I didn’t pay close enough attention before she left for Doggy College.

This morning my papa decided to help me with the stairs. He put me on the top step (not the way mom did) and helped me put my front feet on the step below. My back feet naturally followed. He did it again and again until we got to the bottom of the stairs. After I took care of my business outside, we went back upstairs so I could eat. Then Papa went outside to water the grass. I wanted to go with him, so while he was gone, I took a deep breath and walked to the top of the stairs. Then I put my front paws down on the step below. It was kind of scary but I tried not to think about it too much. I’d just practiced this stair thing after all. I could do it. So I tried again and again and when Papa came back inside he was so surprised and pleased to see me waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs.

Next time you have to do something hard, remember what I learned on the stairs today. If you take a big obstacle one small step at a time you can do more than you think you can.

Emma: No word yet other than that she made it to San Rafael. At this point no news is good news. The initial evals for breeding takes about two weeks. Banta is our only dog who made it passed the first two weeks of breeder evals. Dune was the shortest with only two days.