Tale of the Pup

My name is Fo'c'sle Jack, and I live here now among cats and folks and a great big dog, and they are all bigger than me, but I don't care. I had a neighbor was a Doberman once, and he said I ought to care that I was so small. He said, "Lil' runt like you oughtta care. One minute you'se a dog, next minute you'se squish," and then he laughed like dogs do. You humans think they're yawning, but there's a laugh way up there that only dogs can hear, and he was laughing at me.

Between you and me, he had a wussie name. Some yo-yo thought it would be great to call him Tiny, so I say there's justice in the universe that he should be stuck with that, while I'm ...Fo'c'sle Jack. Now that name kicks some butt.

Who's laughing now?
They are good to me here, and I'm told I'm brilliant and mostly housebroken because I have only had two oops in 40 hours, and that is good for a six-week-old pup. I say I broke THEM. They take me outside every two hours, which is where I want to be anyway, and I reward 'em with a pee. When they're gone a little longer time (6 hours today!), I wait so I can get a longer time outside, and can reward them with a longer pee. So simple, really, though why they should want pee for prizes is beyond me. I mean, it's not like it's performance art or anything.

One day maybe I'll mark a tree and a pretty little she-poodle will pause there later and say, "Oh la la! It's Fo'c'sle Jack. Mais Oui !"

And then she'll want me. She'll want me bad.


My name is Fo'c'sle Jack, and I came to my Big Person as a comfort for a friend she lost. The first time I saw her, she picked me up and held me to her face, and she cried and cried and nodded yes. She laughs some when she holds me, and she cries some too. I heard her say yesterday that when a good dog says goodbye, he leaves a shape in the doorway that no other dog ever quite fills, and young as I may be, I know that's true. I can smell the fading scent of a dog who once loved this house, this ground, and my Big Person, and I know he's a little less here each day, and that my Big Person knows it too. When she opens the door, there is someone she sees moving away from her, and it isn't me.

But then she looks to me, and scritches me, and I step through the doorway -- there to make my own shape.

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