Tag: puppies

On the news

In which I am becoming older

I should have had a bit less to drink than I did especially because I’ll be out again tonight, and it’s been a long time since I had wine two nights in a row, but it didn’t do me any harm, and it would be business as usual, except … the puppy. Productivity zapper that’s for sure. I simply cannot allow it to not be in my lap as I type, he is beautifully affectionate and (at the moment) the perfect size. So while I did have lots of plans of things to be done today, instead I have been wandering aimlessly around the internet, falling down such rabbit holes as dear mariella on The Guardian website.

I scroll through The Guardian and ABC apps a couple of times each day, so I do feel like I’m up-to-date with the news, but I am always surprised when I am in a group of people because they always seem to know what each other is talking about, and I am very often simply nodding in that, ‘Ah, yes, I strongly agree, but have nothing further to add’ until I’m able to generate a quick quip which shows I’m listening and enjoying the conversation even if I don’t properly know what we’re talking about. I think part of that is to do with age. I suppose when I was young, it didn’t bother me that I didn’t know what older people were talking about because one I knew heaps more than they did anyway and two (paradoxically but nonetheless logically) I expected them to know more than I did. Now, I feel that there is a whole world that is not only separate from mine but entirely inaccessible to me. The older person’s world would one day be mine, but the younger person’s never will be. I don’t suppose this is an original or startling revelation, and probably if I’d been listening I would have heard older people telling me about this some time ago.

Which is a long-winded way of getting to the thing I wanted to tell you about which is that I really do miss newspapers, by which I mean news printed on paper. Especially the weekend newspaper. Living in Adelaide our printed papers choice has always been pathetically limited, but I did used to get The Advertiser delivered and I occasionally still buy it. And I like the Financial Review, although less so now that Laura Tingle has gone to the ABC. I have The Saturday Paper delivered but it doesn’t last all that long, and can certainly be cleared away from the kitchen table well before Wednesday which is the day that I used to sweep all of the weekend papers away, leaving whatever hadn’t been read forever unread.

I’m off to find some toys for the puppy now because when it isn’t on my lap it is chewing at my knitting or dragging my socks to its bed. I don’t like either of those things.

On puppies

In which the puppy arrives

Three days missed, but I’ve got an excuse, a reason even, because I got talked into getting a puppy. The last time we had a puppy, it was an Absolute Disaster there is no other way to describe it. A beagle, brought into our lives at the height of its tumult. Cancer, dementia, infertility, beagle. Anyone who knew anything about beagles–about cancer, dementia, infertility, puppies–looked at me with horror in their eyes, and they were right. I had no idea how to care for a dog, let alone a beagle, and it was an added stressor I really did not need.

But while we were living in Abu Dhabi, we grew used to having a dog in our lives. In response to the needs of my youngest boy–I’m serious when I say he didn’t just want, he needed a dog–we fostered a little white terrier that was waiting until it had its rabies jabs cleared before it could join its family in Australia, and then adopted a wonderful dog. She was about nine years old when she came to us, a corgi crossed with a german shepherd and about as far from a beagle as you could get while still being a dog. She was what dogs used to be, back in the days when getting a dog was as simple as waiting for your neighbour’s dog to have a litter and there was none of this putting yourself on waiting lists with breeders. She barked when anyone knocked at the door and they stood on the other side frightened until they opened the door and saw her. Short, tail-wagging…beautiful old thing.

We brought her back to Adelaide with us, but she got older as we all do and one Saturday the end of her life came much more quickly than any of us had been ready for, but it was the best way to die. One bad day, surrounded by people who love you.

It’s funny that having a puppy has made me notice the space where our beautiful dog used to be. It reminds me how it was to be greeted by her every time I came home, or got up in the morning in the way that only a dog can do. ‘Oh my god, you came back, I had no idea you would come back, this is the best moment of my life.’ And when I was lonely, the only adult in the house, she would sit, quietly, just being with me. I had never been a dog person before, but she turned me into one.

And now we’ve got this puppy and it is the sweetest, cutest thing on the planet. As much as sometimes I do regret the passing of time, I like the way this puppy reminds me that life is easier than it was all those years ago when that beagle came to stay. Because when I look at this puppy I’m not terrified.