Sammy Part 5: The middle of the middle

January 2011

“Sam, Go get your bone,” I tell her as she bounds off my bed and into the living room, a blur of white and tan fur and a wagging stubby tail.

She returns a few moments later hopping up on the bed beside me where she promptly lies down and begins gnawing at her chewy bone triumphantly.

“Sammy,” I say as she pauses her chewing to look up at me. “Go get your toy.”

She quickly abandons her bone, bounding back out into the living room and returning a few moments later with her green rubber horseshoe, her only puppy-hood toy that she hasn't managed to shred with her persistent teeth. She hops back onto my bed and begins to chew on the horseshoe, tail wagging proudly.

I scratch her behind her ears and tell her she’s such a good dog. God is she clever, we’ve never had a dog this smart before.

“Come on,” I say as I hop off the bed and stride toward the kitchen followed by the jingle of Sam’s collar and the click of her nails on the tile.

“I spoil you too much,” I say reaching into the cupboard to pull out her treats. Her eyes are wide with joy and her tail is wagging.

“Sit,” I tell her, and she plops her but on the ground, but she has a hard time keeping it there because her tail is wagging too much. Also because she knows what I’m going to say next.

“Up,” I tell her and she gets up on her hind legs. I smile at this, and then give her the treat. Sam runs into the living room with it, possessed with the irrational paranoia that I would try to take the treat from her.

When I make it to the living room, she eyes me suspiciously but her tail is wagging and her treat has long been devoured. “Go get your toy,” I tell her, and then we play.

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Later that night, I don’t put her in her room. I’ve stopped doing this, saying “Ohh it got late, and I forgot.” I don’t think my mom believes me, and she shouldn’t. Sam has been staying with me. It’s cold in the bathroom, but more than that, I like snuggling with my puppy. Sammy is my dog. Don’t get me wrong, she loves Mom and Tom, my dad and, for some reason that I don’t quite understand, she even loves Kelsie (who hates Sam for a reason I really can’t understand). However, Sammy is my dog.

So she sleeps in my room. She decided she liked sleeping under the covers, its warmer there and the walls to our house are thin to the January night. I didn’t really think dog’s liked to be under the covers, but every night she noses her way under them and curls up by my legs in that way that dogs do where they’re leaning against you but not on top of you. I really get why they say that dogs are man’s best friend.

This photo was actually taken much more recently, but it fits with the over all theme of this post really well.