Doggie Differences

Inevitably, with a new weiner dog in the house, she's going to be compared to her predecessor. And like all parents, we tend to look back on the past with rose-colored glasses, or, at best, brains fogged by the passage of time and the basic inability (at least on my part) to remember more than just a few days from our first dog's brief puppyhood.

So here are the big differences: Dottie doesn't sleep through the night. Starting at about 3:30 am -- no matter if she's been up all day or slept all day -- she's awake and ready to play. Heaven forbid if either one of us has to leave the room to use the facilities (we're both drinking a lot of water these days; it's inevitable) she's right there, ready for her day to begin. Not Moki. We remember her as the one who emulated Carol Burnett in that old comedy sketch where she and Tim Conway have guests who refuse to take their less and less subtle hints that it's time for them to leave so they can go to bed. She eventually gets curlers in her hair and pulls out the hide-a-bed, yawning deeply as her guests continue to prattle on. Moki put in the curlers. Moki slept through the night.

Dottie puts in the curlers. But she's a young'un afraid -- like our human kids -- that she's going to miss something terribly exciting if Mom or Dad are awake and she is not. Mostly, it's food she thinks she's missing out on. As I have to get up at 4 am in order to catch the bus to work at 5, she knows once Daddy is up that breakfast is inevitable.

Another difference: Dottie doesn't sit square on her obttom, with her legs poking out like pontoons. We called Moki's stance "Pontoon legs." I really miss them. But Dottie is, of course, cute enough on her own. We just hope she'll catch on to our own rhythms so we can sleep.