Benji dream

I am walking with someone ahead of me on a path through an open area towards woods. Suddenly Benji and a black dog are charging full speed to the left through the field, towards a small yard where several children are playing. The children jump up on a small table for safety. But only the black dog is there. Behind them to the right is a fence, with Benji on the far side of it. (The side the dogs approached is open, but hey, this is a dream.)

I yell to Benji, and he runs back towards the right. Just at the point he has cleared the fence, and I think he is about to turn toward me, a large white horse appears, running beside him, between us. The horse abruptly drops to the ground on its left side. I think it must have landed on Benji, but then see him, also on his side or back on the ground. I don’t know what they do next, sniffing or rolling around, but they are completely preoccupied with one another.

And happy.

The little one, two months later

dog with small puppy — Beginning of December: 3.3 kilos

puppy sleeping in basket — One month later: 6.5 kilos

dog with puppy — Today, two months later: 11+ kilos (can’t get him still enough on the scale to get an accurate reading!)

And he’s apparently learning from his older brother:

puppy upside-down on couch — The little one, today.

Benji’s new little friend

Part playmate, part plaything — dogs will be dogs. When Benji came into our lives, Gita played with him, but, being somewhat matronly, she had her limits. Which I thought delightfully karmic, since it reminded me of her introduction into our lives, and how patiently our then-matronly dog Karma put up with Gita (Bhagavad nothing; short for Dogita, and properly spelled Guita), who equally more or less terrorized Karma. And invoked karma.

FWIW, this is my 1,000th blog post. How time flies when you spend it documenting trivialities!

Because puppy.

We had a problem. When we tried to sit on the couch after dinner to read, Benji would get between us and stretch out. Which amounted to being in both of our laps. At the same time.

So wife said, let’s replace wicker chairs in the bay window with small couch from upstairs. And it worked. She could sit there — reading material illuminated by an amazing 5-watt LED ceiling bulb — while I sat nearby on the couch, its empty two-thirds occupied by puppy.

Tonight, puppy Tetris.

FWIW: we bought used furniture and reupholstered thinking rental, since we had another house at the time. Didn’t happen. Stuff’s ugly. Whatever.

New addition to the family

If you’ve ever tried to take a picture of a puppy, you’ll understand this photo viscerally.

No image manipulation involved. We seem to have settled on his name as “Benji,” which was the name of the beautiful but personality-challenged dog we rescued (with permission) from our troglodyte property-squatting neighbors.

Suggestion inspired by our Uruguayan-American friend Isabel, who recalled that I once said all dogs in Uruguay were named Benny, because when owners call them they say ¡vení! (come!), which seems to be a Rioplatense Spanish conjugation. (If you can clarify, please do!)