Dogs are Like Family Members

I have been reading Tipper's blog, Blind Pig and the Acorn. I subscribe to her newsletter, http://www.blindpigandtheacorn.com/blind_pig_the_acorn/2011/04/appalachia-through-my-eyes-wild-bills-a-true-friend.html

and saw I had missed a post on Favorite Pet. The list of comments on that post  rolled on and on  with stories of wonderful, well-loved dogs.
                                                                                                                            This one looks like Brandy, our first beloved pet, playful and full of life.

As I read those heart warming stories, I thought again of doing as my friend Shirley Uphouse did, writing a book about my well-loved dogs beginning with Brandy, the miniature poodle who thought he was a Great Dane or maybe a circus performer. Brandy came into our lives a couple of weeks after Barry and I married. The little ball of black fluff was my wedding present from my sweet husband who knew how much I wanted my own puppy. He loved dogs as much as I, so he had found the litter of pups that belonged to a home breeder. We seemed to know immediately the one we wanted. He seemed to know as well, that we were the ones he wanted to own, to train, to live with all of his 19 years.

From his first night with us when he refused to stay in the bed we had prepared for him with socks, toys and a clock to remind him of his mothe's heartbeat,
all things we'd read would make the new puppy happy, he owned us.

Brandy started out in a box in the kitchen. Before midnight his box was beside the bed with Barry's hand drooped down for the puppy to smell and lick. But when I awoke the next morning, the wee curly black baby slept on my pillow.

Within months, Brandy was responsible for us moving from our  furnished apartment to our home in the woods. We had little to pack other than our clothes, Barry's guitars and his record collection. We also had a naughty puppy that could not and would not be left alone. When we had to go to work, Brandy punished us for leaving him by chewing and destroying anything he could reach with his little teeth. That included the sofa, the chairs, the coffee table, the doors and whatever was within his reach. He shredded the sofa cushions one day,the next, he  destroyed the inside of the bathroom when we locked him in there.

That was the beginning of the Brandy years of our lives in the woods on the farm. Some day I'll write all of Brandy's escapades and put them between covers of a book.

Would  you read a book about a most intelligent, stubborn  and manipulative little dog with the heart of an athelete, a champion?