Bichon Puppy Or What Would My Mother Say?

This is a little convoluted I know, I promised myself I would write about things I was interested in instead of what was popular. If I just wrote about what was popular I would be writing about the new dog in the White House, Bo Obama (OK I did write about him but I was interested that day). I choose instead to write about this blog. The picture above and it's reason for being here? It's one of my favorite pictures, my bichon Dispatch when he was a little over 5 weeks old exploring. The elephant ears are big granted but he was SO tiny, notice the cat laying on the sidewalk to the right of the photo scoping out the white morsel that may provide some fun in his life. Dispatch was @ that age where he made those little snuffling noises and had me instantly convinced he needed to be held most of the time. Dispatch is probably one of the main reasons this blog exists, he's truly an animal that give pause, as my husband says there will never be another one like him, he's made several people without dogs go out and get them in hopes they will provide the companionship, love, and humor, to their day that he provides to mine. If I have cheese he will give paws too, or if he's in a good mood.

I went over 14,000 views today according to my statcounter, link here if you are interested in getting it for your blog or webpage. 14,000 is quite a few views for a blog that 's really been around only since November or December, can't quite remember which and I started my other one first. Anyway I sort of gave up in January and back then I was ecstatic to get over 100 hits on a Sunday doing all the linking and blogging and commenting I could do in a day. Then I wrote a few good posts and ignored it, more hours @ work and reading more about animals and I'm lazy. All of a sudden a week or so ago I'm up to 9,000 views? I double checked with Alexa and it all seems to be kosher. Talk about renewed energy in writing?

I want to thanks each and every one of you who has stopped in to my blog, I want to thank specially my watchers and people who commented. If I don't get another hit on my blog I am still happy and content knowing that for a bit I made someone think or laugh. I would prefer you all would keep coming, most days I'm not this long winded and well witchy for lack of a better word, OK, I'm long winded and witchy most of the time but we can pretend can't we?

Why do I blog about animals? I love animals, always have, since my first puppy and the squirrel I used to communicate with everyday. I'd walk home from the school bus, stop @ the log cabin (doesn't everyone have one?) sit in the tree with the huge low branch that was almost parallel with the ground and talk to George the squirrel. My dad saw me a couple times driving by and was amazed, I never touched George, he just sat close and we chatted. My brother was 23 by this time and long gone, my dad worked long hours on the farm, my mother taught and was always gone so I talked to George. I don't know what ever happened to George but I've always had a soft spot for that name for pets and for squirrels. The tree is dead, the hollow where the stump stood is even gone but the log cabin is still there and there are still squirrels in the trees by it.

How does my mother figure into this? She wasn't so hot on animals, she did bring kittens back to life after they were nearly drowned in the rain by laying them on the warm wood stove oven door but that was her only sign that she liked animals. She did have Siamese cats when she got older, most of the time they lived @ my house down the hill. My mother thought I was weird about animals and to put it bluntly wanted to squelch anything that wasn't in her image that came out in me. She was forever saying I was getting sick from the farm cats, threatened to have them killed, it turned out to be tonsillitis. When I did get ringworm I figured out it was from the cats, I spent most of the summer in trees when she was looking for me (mama didn't climb trees and never looked up) so she couldn't see my feet till the ringworm cleared up when I was about 8 (I was also enamoured with To Kill A Mockingbird). She didn't like my dog, we won't go into those details but they are all relevant to my thoughts. She taught English Literature, she taught other things too, living in a rural area she couldn't pick and choose jobs because of distances she had to drive to work but her main love was English Literature. What always amazed me was I never seldom saw her read a book for pleasure, I have maybe 10 laying around that she read for sheer enjoyment and part of them were biographies of TV personalities? I sound rather critical of my mother I know, I will say when my dad got older and ill and I took care of him I understood why she lost her temper sometimes.

When I was falling asleep last night (I get these ideas often while falling asleep) I was thinking what would mama say if she knew say maybe 10,000 people had read @ least part of the words her daughter had written? She would say Bravo and clap and swear any writing ability I have I got from her (my dad was a GREAT storyteller, no writer but a wonderful raconteur), then she would find out I was blogging about animals and the proverbial excrement would hit the fan.

Oh and the secret codeword is labradoodle! I know the Obama's dog is a Portuguese Water Dog but I think my two dogs mixed together are a labradoodle, (actually they would be a bilab but that sounds either like they are rather weird or have a mental problem which could be true?)or it's a codeword? LOL