Olja First

Wires are of particular interest to us young dogs.

Cables link things and it’s not always easy to find a begining and an end. That adds to the mystery of wires.

They are not easy to find where I live. They tend to be be stuffed behind cupboards and shelves, as well as the thing they both stare at in the evening with flickering coloured pictures and booming, strange sounds coming out of it.

But a tiny piece of wire is visible here and there. Especially under the low table which only I, with my tummy almost touching the floor, can crawl under. Small is great!

These wires are there to be smelled, chewed and pulled wherever possible.  They can be quite chewy at times although today I got a small piece stuck between my teeth, and a mild energizing feeling in my head which made my ears stand up. I quite liked it but soon my ears flopped back again.

So I pull and I sniff, and look there’s a piece of wire hanging down from the table. Now I can stand on my hind legs – I am a strong Olja – and that means I can really pull from my neck as well.

This is fun.

Then, all of a sudden, a huge, bright red lamp topples over on the table and I see it in slow motion as it comes over the edge and hurtles towards me. It doesn’t look like such fun any more.

I am an agile pup and one leap to my right means the big, bad lamp misses me by the length of a bone. You won’t get me. Ha!

But the noise! Bang, ping, it comes apart as it hits the floor. Then there is more noise – much more noise – and the HAND delivers me in one sweeping move – I can fly, I can fly – back into my blue basket. The door is zipped before I can whizz back into my playground.

I whine. It’s a dog thing. Whining, it makes them feel guilty. Always works.

Not this time, though. I am in the dog house.

Time for some sleep…and time to dream about my search for more hidden wires.

 

I heard the dreaded D word today. A four letter word. It is not what you want to hear when you are so young.

Diet.

It’s enough to make you want to bury a bone somewhere, anywhere. Emergency chews for a rainy day.

Anyway, I was tucking into my evening bowl – a special treat of some soft chicken which smells and tastes like chewy warm milk  – when all of a sudden, after the HAND puts my bowl down, I hear my mistress ask: Do you think she’s a bit FAT?

I continue wolfing my bowl down, pretending not to listen. My ears are pricked.

Not not really, my master says.

Aaaargh, Not really. That’s a pussy cat statement. Indecisive. It just opens the door to…

And then I hear it: The D-word.

We’ll give her a bit less, they agree.

Noooooooo! I ignore them. Maybe they’ll forget by tomorrow morning. After all, they’re only human.

Next morning, however, the bad news.  There is less – at a quick calculation, about 10% less – in my breakfast bowl. Not too drastic, I think. But still: I am a growing dog.

I protest in the only way I know how: After finishing my breakfast, I run away and hide in my favourite box (the blue one with a cushion that smells deliciously of me).

No one will find me here. But then the HAND reaches in and lifts me out of my hideout. How did they find me so soon?

As she lifts me for a kiss (the first of the day), I hear something really, really positive.

„I can feel her bones.“

Yes, I am only 12 weeks old…and I’m facing rations already!

„It’s not good to feel the bones of a growing dog. Let’s forget the diet idea.“

And then she looks surprised as I lick her cheeks and ears (mmmm, nice perfume).

„It’s as though she understands what I said.“

Ha, I am put down. My ears are stroked. I roll over for a tummy rub. I stretch my legs in the air and close my eyes.

Victory for Olja.

They call it excercise for some reason. I don’t need excercise. I just run. And I’m learning to jump as well.

Every morning – that’s the word THEY use for when they let me out of my box – and every evening (before they put me back in), I go for a run. From one end of the playground to the other.

Trrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. I love that sound.

My legs, admittedly not the longest (yet), hardly touch the ground. I’m a blur of white, racing over the red carpet, through the open gate that separates my front and rear playgrounds, and right up to the balcony door (shut until I’m older, they say).

My record is a few dog seconds. Sometimes I am forced to slow down when Erwin the elk insists on traveling with me in my mouth; other times, I am only halted by the glass balcony door. Boum! I like that sound.

Today something strange happened. Mistress had rolled out a green mat on the carpet, and is lying on it. She waves her legs in the air. I can do that too.

Then she lowers them. And then she does the same again…many, many times. Counting out loud.

Well, I’m not having that in the middle of my playground. Oh no. It’s my space. And I’m being ignored as well. So far, I have been lying quietly next to her observing this strange morning ritual, watching, assessing, waiting for the right moment.

Enough!

Whoosh. I spring on to her tummy, settle my weight on her chest, push my nose towards hers. Lick her chin, her nose, her neck. And put all my weight on her chest. Olja shall not be moved.

And neither can she. I’m far too heavy. My strategy has worked. End of morning ritual. Full attention for Olja.

And then she laughs – not what I was expecting, to be honest.  But I have achieved my objective. End of exercise.

Victory for Olja First.

I have a box. In fact, I have several. It depends how you define them. There are two in my playground, made of blue cloth and with plastic locks which are just great for chewing and pulling…until THE HAND appears and transports me to another area where other toys are stacked high. A free ride!

Anyway there are two big boxes, stuffed with cushions, a little carpet which smells sweetly of me, and a corner where I can discreetly hide my bones.

No one would ever know – or dare to invade my privacy – so they don’t see I have a stock of half-finished meat sticks buried under the foam cushions. A secret I am not telling anyone.

I also have a green plastic bowl, broad enough for an afternoon siesta, situated under a palm tree along one wall. I am waiting for the leaves of the palm tree to start falling so I can chew something exotic. But at the moment nothing. Maybe when I am bigger, I will be able to help some of those leaves to find their way to floor level.

In the meantime, I am keeping a very, very close watch on them.

I have two other boxes, both mobile. Apparently I am only allowed to walk for 15 minutes a day until I get stronger. My mistress put me in a small blue one this morning and said she would take me to town in it. Well, I was having nothing of that. What’s a town, anyway? Was I asked? What am I – a fashion accessory to be paraded  through something called a town?

No way. Time to take a stand.

So, at the first trial attempt to put me in the basket and carry me around the playground, I rocked it from side to side, jumping up and down, and then I threw myself against the entrance, jumped a bit more and howled. Ha! I made the basket – and me – impossible to carry. The basket is put down, I am allowed to escape and there is talk of „never trying that again.“ Smells like victory.

And then there’s the other box. The mobile one. The one that is going to be used to wheel me around, to take me for a walk without me walking. Strange idea, walking in a box. No dog would think like that.

Well I don’t like the sound of it and I’m planning an act of sabotage when Mistress tries it. I am not going to say what I am planning…oh no…but a clue, it may involve a large amount of poop.

No one can box me in.

Kromfohrländer first!

Olja First!

It’s a fact, I overhear my mistress saying. It’s a fact that little ones who have not been around for a very long time – whatever time is –  have short memories. I don’t know whether that is right – or even a bit condescending – but the fact is: I barked at him. He’d been out for a while and came in with one of those big shopping bags that make an awful rustling, scraping noise.

We who have not been around a long time don’t like rustling, scraping noises.

So, I do what comes naturally: I fill my lungs and gave him a two-lung bark. Yow-wow-wow. I think I scare him because he puts his bag down, sits on the carpet, and then I run really, really fast towards him and jump up at his chest, front paws first, and chew his nose. Wow, he shrieks.

Ha ha! We can both say Wow now. It’s a game with a lot of promise.

I am discovering something. Well, actually a lot of things.

There are degrees of barking.

From the light yelp (help!) to woof (stay away) to a yowl (please don’t leave me alone) to a full throated, full lunged howl either to frighten or to warn. One thing is for sure: I need to practice.

And I will.

Mirrors, that’s what they call them, if my under-size ears hear it right.

I was mucking around a bit this morning, hanging out, dragging Erwin around my playground by one of his streaky legs, taking time out to tug at an annoying yellow towel, and re-shaping my cotton bed like a champion digger, when I saw something incredible. And frightening.

Without being consulted – no, not a mention – I see another dog. In the same room. Ears, tail, everything. Young and somewhat fragile, frisky like me. Who is this? And hey, this is my playground.

I approach the wall and see this dog up close. It moves when I do. I try a dummy, a feint to  the left, a small jump. He copies me. What reactions! I growl. I mean you would expect that, wouldn’t you? Dogs growl. It’s part of our defence mechanism designed to frighten the opposition, the uninvited or unwelcome. I’m already quite good at it, and I intend to practice. But wait, he – I think it’s a he, but I’m not sure – he growls back at me. What a shock, what an insult.

I was just about to launch a fierce, even vicious, assault on this four-legged intruder –  I’m getting ready to head but him – when a LARGE HAND lifts me up and puts me down in another part of my playground. Next to my favourite green ball. Think I may chew it a lot.

And then I hear sounds that seem suspiciouly like laughter, a gurgling bubbly sound. I roll over, expose my pink tummy, and try to join in the fun. I mean, I do like to entertain.

Yes, I do. But then a doubt creeps in. Only briefly, mind. Was the joke on me? Not sure.

Who cares, life is fun.

I really don’t know what all the fuss is about. Yes, I was happy with my six brothers and sisters. Yes, my mother looked after me well, even if, of late, she developed a liking for grabbing me by a front leg and tossing me on the floor, unceremoniously, belly up. Fair game. And game it is.

Being an observant sort, I had noticed my little brothers and sisters disappearing over the past few play mornings. Never gave it a second thought. My time will come to disappear, I thought, but I didn’t give it a second one. Play, play, play, food, pee, play. Has a nice cadence to it.

Then when they came for me, I thought I’d winge a bit in the car. A good way of assessing at an early stage how quick they are with the goodies. Pretty quick, I would say. Store that one away in the memory bank.

So my first few hours in the new home: nine out of ten for playground size, 11 out of ten for new toys (a floppy little brown elk whose ears I will surely manage to tear off pretty soon, and who I shall name Erwin), and a whole series of coloured towels whose prime aim in life is to be tossed around.

I like licking. It has to be said. Salty, sweaty, perfumed skins. Yum. And it seems to keep them happy as well. They laugh a lot when I lick their noses or cheeks. Good to keep them happy because my intuition tells me I will be with them a while. And they will treat me well.

Take food: If I have understood their conversation acccurately, and it’s early days yet, she has been shopping for weeks in advance and cooking small portions of horse meat (my favourite) to give me at regular intervals. I hope she doesn’t forget to take the next portion out of that white oblong box where things are very cold. I found some blue fluff under it this afternoon, and then a HUGE HAND came and removed it from my mouth.

Have been for a series of walks – not too long, mind – so I can sniff out the environs. And what smells there are in what they call the garden– tall green things which I can chew before they are forcibly removed from my mouth, swaying blue flowers which I can push with my nose. I even saw something with wings fly away from me. I only wanted to play.

Concentration. That’s what I lack. I need to snooze every once in a while. Actually quite often, usually after play or food. Or licking. You see I am only ten person weeks old.

Some say I have a great future ahead of me. Bright little thing, I hear them say. Of course, I am going to be one of the gratest canines of all time. That’s why I am called Olja First.

So much thinking. Need to lie down.

A January the first rant: Please can we stop using the term “post-truth” era which was voted 2016’s term of the year by Oxford Dictionaries.

In true Orwellian fashion it masks what we really mean: lies and liars. Lying and the mass marketing of half-truths have become a global pandemic. Nothing new in the phenomenon, of course, but the sheer scale and scope, ever easier conduits to market, and the level of shoulder shrugging acceptance, are staggering.

Our daily intake nowadays includes elections or votes built on a bedrock of lies, many corporations and other organisations “positioning” themselves, newspapers and social media (with some exceptions) channelling wishful thinking, prejudice and emotion masquerading as fact, opinions increasingly being hardened by instincts etc etc. React now, think later (if at all).

Yes, I know, truth always has a large dose of subjectivity. But the greater the lies, the more we need to re-discover individual self-responsibility. Has the notion of shame been consigned to the dustbin of history, have we forgotten the goal of striving for human dignity?

So my new year’s wish (perhaps a little naive, but following some self-assessment of my own truth thresholds): challenge the non-sense and invidious lies and half-truths with which we are bombarded daily.

Only then will we move beyond the post-truth era…perhaps into a CtC (cut the crap) era or a PLE (post-lies era). Oh, and happy new year!