Jack

 ,

Last summer, a puppy suddenly appeared on the Porch.

I watched his furry pot-bellied swagger and remembered what it was like to sniff that little puppy smell.

It had been a long time.

We have never gone purposely to get a dog.

They find us.

I saw him several days in a row.

He had a collar and never had that pitiful desperate look of a stray.

Our treasured dog had died a year ago and the pain was still fresh.

For about a week he hung out by our yard.

I wouldn't touch him, but I fed him.

Finally , he looked up, our eyes met and I was a goner.

I opened the door and said, "you might as well come on in"

It was a rocky ride for awhile.

He was so big and such a young puppy.

He ate everyone's shoes, sometimes while they were still on our feet!

When he had puppy accidents, it was a gallon of puppy pee!

He knocked the neighborhood kids down and they wouldn;t play in the yard.

With lots of love and patience, he learned to quit biting us (it's not hard being our dog, our standards arent' real high!)

He has boundless good cheer, never once had he snarled or cried.

It makes me smile just to see him.

He gets so excited he rolls on his back and kicks his feet inthe air!

I was hoping since he is so big, he would be a guard dog like the dear departed ,but the other day when firefighters came to empy the fire hydrnat in the yard, I had to go get him because he was rolling all over them, licking them....a giant red truck with flashing lights, four burly men in his yard...not a bark!

Oh, well,

He is a great compainion, rides with me everywhere.

When he sits in the passenger seat, he is as tall as me. I steer with one hand and put the other one around him and every now and then, he reaches over to kiss me...Tom says I have a boyfriend!

   

In reading back over my journal, I revisited the day our beloved dog ,big protective growly Butterfly , left us.

 

It was a year to the day later that Jack showed up on The Porch.

I guess it was time.