Challenge Literature Fellowship - USA
I have been suffering from back pain for the last few months, which has been quite debilitating. Last night, as I sat on the couch with my sausage dog on my lap, my daughter set me a poser: “Mum, would you rather have no pain and no dog, or have Carrie but continue to have pain?”Continue reading
I read a story recently about a dog that has sat for four months outside a hospital in Brazil, waiting for its owner, who died there. Apparently, another dog in Japan waited similarly for ten years on a train station! I reckon my sausage dog, Carrie, would only wait for me until someone walked past with food!Continue reading
Our sausage dog, Carrie, absolutely hates cats! She has this special mewling growl sound that she makes when she sees them in our front garden. If I let her out the front door, she dashes after them to scare them off our lawn and then sniffs out all the places they have been.Continue reading
I don’t think my little dog, Carrie has very good eyesight. The other evening, just as it was getting towards dusk, she started barking and whining at the picture window that looks onto the front yard. It was her “cat whine” and she was desperate to be let out to chase what she thought was a cat out from under the front bushes (she clearly hasn’t learnt from the scratches she got last time!).Continue reading
My little dog, Carrie, made me very cross this last week. I opened the front door to get the mail and she dashed out, across the road to chase a cat, which isn’t a problem, but then she refused to come back when I called her. I tried to cajole her, to put a stern note in my voice, to shout at her, to ignore her, and pretend I was leaving her outside. But none of it helped, the dog was on a mission to find that cat and wasn’t interested in me or my commands.Continue reading
The vet tells me my little dog, Carrie, is dying.
You wouldn’t know it from looking at her though. She has a glossy coat, she runs around and barks the same as always, she is eating and pooping and scratching and sleeping and curling up on my lap, same as ever. She doesn’t seem to be in any pain or have any swellings.Continue reading
After all these sausage dog stories, I think I may have got the analogy wrong. That my relationship with my little dog is not in fact a very good picture of God’s relationship to me, after all.
You see, the other day I was eating something and Carrie was begging for a piece of it. I said “no” and one of my girls said, “Mum, she knows you don’t really mean it.” Sure enough, I eventually gave the dog some.Continue reading
Carrie, as a sausage dog, is of course very short-legged. This has some advantages for me, as she is unable to jump on my bed, reach food on the kitchen counter or pull things off the couch. However, the flip-side of that is that she needs my help a lot – every time she gets on or off anything.Continue reading
You have probably heard the expression “puppy dog eyes”. My sausage dog Carrie is an expert at that expression! It is a look that combines love and need in equal parts. My dachshund will sit and stare at me beseechingly while I am eating something or when she feels I have been at the computer too long.
She doesn’t have to make a sound or move, just those eyes staring at me adoringly are so hard to resist. She is, at once, peaceful and expectant. I know what she wants without her making a sound – dog eyebrows can be incredibly expressive!
Continue readingFrom being someone five years ago who wasn’t very interested in pets, to the doggie lover I am today, has only taken the intervention of one little sausage dog – my shorthaired, tan standard dachshund Carrie.
In the last eight years our house has slowly accumulated several sausage dog touches in the form of ornaments and pictures. I even have sausage dogs on my shower cap and PJs!Continue reading