Hello, my name is Ziggy, and I know stuff!

I didn’t always know stuff, but I do now!

I know that the 2-leggers are called humans and that I am called a dog. We dogs come in different shapes and sizes.

My forever human Dad, says I’m a funny-looking thing, and when he says so my forever Mum tells him off and fusses me and says words I don’t understand, like a handsome, and gorgeous boy.

I came to my forever home from Spain, but I don’t think it’s because my Forever Dad felt sorry for me. He says he likes my name and talks a lot about some human called David Bowie. 

I’ll tell you how it all started from my early memories when I didn’t know stuff.

My first memory is of my 4-legger food mother being kicked by a very angry two-legger. He made a lot of noise from his face, I don’t know why the two-legger was angry but my brothers and sisters and I were very scared and trembled while hiding behind our food mother. 

Eventually, he went away and we all ran around to food mother’s teets for comfort and of course milk. I was the smallest of all of us. I got pushed and shoved out of the way and only managed to suckle when one of my brothers and sisters had had enough. My tummy always made rumbling sounds in those days.

Our Food Mother found a new hiding hole for us and began to take us there one at a time. Again I was the last to be taken to the new hole. Maybe this time it was a blessing being so small as two 2-leggers saw me being carried. They followed us and saw all of us. When they saw us water came out of their eyes. The 2-leggers made a lot of noises in soft voices. I didn’t understand them, except by the tone of their voices, nothing like the shouty 2 legger earlier. They seemed nice, so we all wagged our handles.

There were more sounds that I can only describe as, “aw” and “so tiny”.

I remember being picked up by the shorter of the 2-leggers. I never saw my brothers and sisters after that, I think the other 2-legger looked after them,  but I was cleaned, fed and rubbed. I was taken to a place where there were a couple of bigger 4-leggers, but they didn’t look like me. The only likeness was their handles, which they wagged frantically when they saw the short 2-legger and me. 

I think this is where I realised that I am a dog and 2-leggers are humans. I think the humans that make softer loving sounds are girl humans and the gruff sounds come from boy humans. This human sounds were, “Another little dog to join you big dogs. The dogs made lots of noise from their mouths, I now know that it’s what humans call barking. I tried this but it didn’t sound the same. The human laughed at me. Her mouth sounds were “You sound like a baby Baskerville hound with that high-pitched noise”. I didn’t understand her, but she patted and fussed me so that was ok.

I decided it would be best to do what the other dogs were doing. The human put shiny round things on the floor, they had some stuff in them that made my mouth fill with water and it leaked a bit. 

Her mouth made sounds, “Wait” and the dogs sat down. I did the same. Her mouth made more sounds after we had been sitting a bit, “ok” she said. The big dogs attacked the shiny things. I followed. I had never tasted anything like the stuff in the shiny things, it tasted so good, I ate very slowly as I didn’t want it to end; but it did end because the other dogs finished theirs, pushed me away and ate mine. I tried to get some more but one of them bit my ear. I yelped and ran. At this time, you see, my ears stood upright and pointy and were bigger than my head, so it was easy to bite them.

In spite of having a chunk bitten out of one of my very large ears, we all became friends and I learned a lot from them. When it was time to do our business, they sat by the door and barked, and I did the same. (Still a bit of a howl from me). Anyway the human came and opened the door for us. The big dogs ran out and just lifted their legs against a tree, I wasn’t used to that, but tried anyway. I couldn’t seem to stand on 3 legs so I just squatted. After we had done our business we raced around the garden chasing each other. I liked that, I now know humans call this “a mad half hour”. 

I still do the mad half hour these days, but more about that later. 

When it became dark we all went back inside, we sat with the human and put our heads on her lap. She always patted and fussed us. All this was very different for me, but it was nice, and it was warm, and my belly didn’t rumble anymore.

So you see, thanks to this human and her dogs, I’ve learned to sit, play, and Wee by squatting.

My name is Ziggy and I know more stuff…