Goodnight Pup!

There were not all that many who could appreciate KO.  She knew it, I knew it and that is just the way we liked it.  She was one of a kind and she would tell you just that.  Now that she isn’t here to tell me what to do, I’m not sure what to do.  I don’t know what time to get up in the morning. I certainly don’t know what time to go to bed.  I have no idea when the rest of the dogs need cookies and I have now lost track of which dogs can be on which beds.  She would not be happy with that last one because she has been teaching me her cobra moves for years.  There are so many funny stories, memories and good times, some that stand out at the moment  ……

– On the day I brought her home and put her down in the kitchen she immediately went about her business to rearrange just about everything she could sink her teeth into. Once she had all of my rugs and things where she wanted them she took a nap.  I think that was probably when her control issues started…day one.

– When Carolyn, KO’s puppy nanny, called me to say in her most serious voice…”Anne, I think KO thinks she owns me” I remember laughing so hard but knowing that she was right.  Carolyn “got” KO, thankfully, because had she not, the next 13 years would have been tricky….for Carolyn.

– The time I was walking KO on a flexi-leash in a hotel parking lot late at night and a rabbit jumps out in front of her….enough said.

– I took KO and Cowboy camping and I had my old van set up so that they could sleep in the van while I slept in the tent. Mostly because the year before when I took Oakley and Cyclone camping, Cyclone unzipped the tent and toured the campground, but that is another story.  So we all go to bed, the dogs are in the van and I am in the tent.  “Chirp!”   There she is.  “Chirp!” Ok, she’s going to settle, I think. “Chirp! Chirp!”  Ok, Pup, settle …I say to myself.  Well…after about 2 hours of her chirping, guess where I slept for the rest of the camping trip.  In the van with the dogs.  Lovely.  She was happy.

– I decided the first year that K9 Kaos was open that I would bring KO to daycare.  Well, she would have none of it and she would stand in the same spot in the yard where she could see me sitting at my desk and she would chirp for the entire day.  I would shut the door so she couldn’t see me, but I could hear her chirping.  She HATED daycare.  Dogs would try to play with her and she would give them the most disgusted look as if to say if you drool on me or touch me in anyway I will kill you.  She thought that other breeds were riff-raff for sure.  I was determined to break her of it so that I could bring her to work everyday with me…it lasted…..5 days.   She won, again.

– Okay last one….When I brought Hootie and Wicca home as puppies I was outside in the yard with them early in the morning while Aaron and the rest of the dogs were still sleeping.  It was late spring time so the windows were open.  I was playing with Hootie and Wicca and calling to them “puppy puppy”  The next thing I know, KO is up in my bay window with a perfect head tilt, bark, head tilt, bark, head tilt completely confused and pissed off that I would dare call any other dog…Pup. I had to stop and I did.

Okay, this is getting too long…KO would prefer something a little more to the point.  She was an awesome, awesome pup.  She had many persona, Pup (of course), Booshka the Russian Princess (it’s true), White Stuff, Cobra, and White Devil (that was Aaron’s name for her).  The things I will hang on to….that perfect head tilt, the fact that you would always bring me a shoe or a toy every single time I came home, sleeping with you, hiking with you, watching you run in the snow, the bouncy tug,  the fact that you truly only loved about 4 people, thankfully Michele, Aaron and I were 3 of them, and of course that grumble you would give Aaron every time he picked you up to go to bed.

KO Pup, I will miss you forever.  I learned so much from you over the years and I think I am a better dog owner because of it.  We tolerated so much together, especially in these later years but I would change nothing. I would kill for a chirp right now. Goodnight Pup!