Puppy Love

Buzz Light Year has gone to infinity and beyond. The puppies chewed off his face, pulled out his stuffing and left him strewn across the bedroom floor. Strewn is the operative word. Since they were abducted from their mother our puppies have sought revenge. They have chewed through two modem leads, a laptop power chord, my favourite Funkis sandals, the matting under the money bars, the beach cricket stumps, bat and ball, the compost, all the washing baskets, innumerable super bouncy balls, the underside of two clubs lounges, and the seats of the rattan chairs, the mosquito nets, the heels of my runners, and most auspiciously the shitty underpants in the park.

You want more information on that last one right? Having endured the scene myself I feel compelled to make everyone else squirm, squeal, clutch their hair and hoist their knees in revulsion just as much. Do not read on if you, by happenstance, are tucking into carrot cake. Let me set the scene.

A man walks into a city park late at night, shits his pants, peels them off, puts his trousers back on and proceeds without them. Why a man? Not because I am a feminist and thus inclined to believe that women are always cleaning up after men’s shit. Though I did try not to look, they were bright blue jocks. Are you out there Bright Blue Jock Man? You’d better hope I don’t get to you first. I mean before the apocalypse.

This was all dystopian enough without the puppies entering the scene with their proclivity, nay, their compulsion, to stick their snuffly little noses into everything and clamp their little needle teeth onto anything comprised of matter.

It was these Guardians of the Underworld, in fact that drew my attention to the encrusted blue jocks. There was a time, perhaps a better time, when I might have wandered through the park blissfully unaware of any perfidious undergrowth of this nature.

By the time I looked over they were in a frenzy of shit-induced jubilation. Their Jack Russell spots were indecipherable. They each bit on either end and were engaged in a tug-of-war the future of all life forms depended on. They ground their little shoulders into it. They went belly-up and waved their gleeful little trotters about. They would’ve said, ‘Oh Yeah Mama’ with deep throaty intent if they could, I am sure of it.

They also would’ve said, ‘what’s with her!’ because they cocked their little heads and flipped over their rather laden little ears in incomprehension as I rounded on them screeching, ‘Leave It!’, ‘Drop It!, ‘Put that Down!’ as if the future of all life forms depended on it. To no avail.

Ever eager to please the puppies decided what I was really saying was ‘Grab it!’, ‘Roll in it!’, and it seems ‘Fetch!’. Yes, the puppies-so-dear resolved that I wanted those bog-trotters for myself. They careened out of the park, and sprang like Pepi Le Pew to our stoop where they deposited with great ceremony and pride the said item that doesn’t bear mentioning. How else might they account for my apoplectic frothing at the mouth?

What a lucky adoptive Puppy Mummy am I. What was there to do but, yay upon yays, go inside, get a plastic bag and a radiation suit, and scoop up this delightful game of craps into my very own shuddering hands and place it, with all the solemnity of a woman who never ever overreacts – you can picture the scene - into our newly scrubbed wheelie bin.

Truly bringing puppies into our lives has changed everything. We now live on Poo Corner like all other cuddly species of the emotionally deranged. Everything in our home is either bifurcated by needle-teeth punctures, or strewn over the floor. Oh, and if I don’t get to the litter tray first, they eat the cat shit. Are they allowed to stick their feverish little tongues up my nose anymore? You be the judge.

The puppies were given a hosing down, with perhaps a little more water pressure than was entirely necessary. How funny they looked suspended up the bricks, waggling their feet, trying to compose their furled back chops and see where the torrent was coming from. But when I come in the door I am still the Messiah, no matter what. And apart from on Blue Jock Day, I fully requite this unconditional love. For it is Puppy Love. It knows no bounds and is expressed with all manner of good tidings.