P is for Prince, My Dog Not The Singer

"Girls," my dad called one warm summer afternoon. "I've got a surprise for you. Come here." My two sisters and I were watching T.V. with our baby sitter. We all bolted up the stairs to see what my dad had for us. When we got to the door of our house my dad opened the car door and out came this adorable little tiny puppy, around the size of a thirty cm ruler. All three of us screamed at the same time so loudly that even my dad had covered his ears. We scared the puppy so much that he ran under the car. The next couple of hours we spent cleaning the grease out of our new puppies beautiful white, brown, and just a hint of black fur. We knew right there that my dad had made the right decision, he was the dog for us.

That first night we had our knew puppy we all sat around the dinner table and talked about what we wanted to name him. Carolyn, my sister, and I wanted to name him Buddy. At that time we were only five and eight, and we were in love with the air bud movies at that time. That name didn't go over to well with fam-jam. My mom wanted to name him Larry. The rest of us thought she was crazy and told her that under any circumstances would we ever name our dog Larry. Then my dad said that when he was younger he had had a sheltie, just like our little puppy, who's name had been Prince. Heather, my older sister took to that name right away, and after some convincing, so did Carolyn. That next day we tried to teach him his name. It didn't go over very well. He had started walking down these stairs in our backyard and got stuck on one right in the middle. We tried to call him down using his new name, but it was no use, so my dad had to go up and carry him down. Just that next day we brought prince down to the dock on our lake, for the first time. Well he saw the water and thought it was just more open land so Prince ran, at full speed, right off the end of the dock and into the water. Besides those unfortunate events, those first couple months were great.

We have had Prince for three months. We've brought him into school to show him to all our friends and everything. Then one day, we go to call him in from outside, and by this time he knows his name and comes when we call. This time he didn't come. It was cold outside, for December, but even so we all went out to look for him. We didn't find him that night or the night after that or the night after that. Carolyn said that he's just gone on a holiday at this nice families house and is delightfully warm inside. My mom thought, though she didn't voice it, that he had either died from the cold or had been run over by a car. We made posters and put then up everywhere, even in the closest towns, that were ten minutes away by driving. After fifteen days we were starting to get very worried. We had just gotten our puppy it wasn't fair that he had to disappear so fast. In the next couple of days or so we got a call from a farm down the road, maybe three minutes away. My sisters and I were very excited and were convinced that that they had our puppy. When we got there we were all practically giddy with excitement. We couldn't wait to get our puppy back. When we got there we were all bitterly disappointed to find that it wasn't Prince at all. It was some chocolate lab. There was a lot of crying that night and non of us got very much sleep. The next ten days were not fun. Then one day early January, my dad got a call from our neighbour. He had been over at the other side of the lake and said that he thought he'd seen our dog running around over there. This time my dad went over by himself because he didn't want to disappoint us again. That afternoon on the twenty-ninth of our precious puppy being gone, my dad came home with his truck and called us all out. Told us he had another surprise for us. We all ran up the stairs really really fast. We didn't know what to anticipate, so we were really excited, well at least I was. When we got there my dad opened the car door and out came Prince. He was dirty and he looked a tone older then he had the last time I had seen him. His short beautiful coat was no longer short, but long. Plus his puppyish personality was gone, but we didn't really care that much, we were all just to excited that he was home. That next little while he got more attention then any dog. Ever. I'm not even joking.

We have now had Prince for close to eight years this summer. I have had him for over half my life and I've enjoyed every minute of it with him. I wish I could never see anything happen to Prince ever again like him getting lost, but I think something worse is happening to him. My dad goes running a lot and he likes to bring Prince. Anyway one day after he brought him home from running he was limping. He wasn't putting any pressure on his leg, like at all. We thought it was because there was something stuck in his paw, but I looked that night and I couldn't find anything. My dad has stopped taking him running now because it had become quit bad. We have a check up scheduled soon, but I'm still worried. I love my dog to pieces and don;t ever want anything to happen to him again and I really hope nothing does.

Looking back on my life with Prince I feel like I have been taking advantage of him and not really spending enough time with him. I am trying not to do that anymore. I am taking him for more walks, though making sure he doesn't run and giving him just an extra pat on the head each morning and night. I hope he will be okay, and that he will live until he's 16. Double his life now. In those next eight years I promise the spend ever spare moment with him.

LIFE LESSON: Pets are something special, and you can have a very special bond with them, so when you try not to waste it.

I commented on Emeile F's blog.