Puppy's first summer at home was also my older sister's last, at least for a while. Her beginning university and living away from home meant that I would have virtually unlimited access to said puppy for the next two years. She belonged to the family, but really, I thought, she would almost be mine.
As the little one outgrew her puppy collar, she started growing into a personality that consisted of more than just sleeping and peeing. As a golden, she is very much a people dog, and simply cannot get enough of any new person she meets. At the dog park, she is known to ignore the other pups in favour of visiting with their owners! She is never aggressive or destructive, and hardly ever barks. Essentially, the ideal dog.
Although she will practically do back flips in order to meet a passer-by on the street, and gets overcome with excitement when either of my parents get home, she has never shown a lot of interest in me. Of course she is perfectly gentle and friendly, but let's just say if she were human, she would by the classmate you acknowledge with a smile in the hall, but don't invite to your sleepover. Before today, I hadn't given this an awful lot of thought. My family has a dog; a friendly, bouncy and furry dog, but nothing to get overly excited about.
Last year, pup injured her leg while running in a dog park. She limped around for a few weeks, but eventually recovered and was considered good as new. Fast-forward to Easter 2013. Pup, in a fit of spring fever, tore around the backyard, accidentally putting her foot in a small hole, and returned to the house with a limp, even worse than before.
I won't bore you with the details, but the experts figured that this time her leg wasn't going to heal on it's own, and so they operated on her knee to repair the ACL ligament. This left her with a humourously "naked" leg - shaved for surgery - but it also left her quite handicapped. She can't go up or down stairs, and the long walks she used to love are now kept as short as possible. She'll likely make a good recovery, but right now it's still sort of dicey.
I haven't recently undergone any knee surgery myself, but it turns out that the void between final exams and summer job is made of tumblr and sci-fi TV. So pup and I have been housebound together. And maybe it's just the stress of recovering from surgery, or my severe boredom, but I am starting to think this dog actually likes me. She seems to really enjoy the attention I give her, and actually seems to mope a bit when I leave her alone. Of course, I am her only connection to the treat jar, so that could also be it.
It's kinda funny how after three years, we both had to have our worlds sort of messed up before we began to bond. I guess that's how these things work, right? You can never appreciate something until you realize how much you really need it. I know she'll never be just "my dog", but it will be nice to have a buddy this summer. And hey - it will give me even less incentive to go out and actually socialize with real people my age!
Here is a picture of us being adorable:
(Well okay, she's being adorable)
Goodnight, bloglings
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