Happiness is a warm puppy... waiting to greet the morning

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As my puppy, a rather large beautiful Golden Retriever lays on my feet (not AT, but ON, making my feet rather too warm most of the time) this evening, I think about all the joy and entertainment this one creature has given me since we were introduced the day after Christmas last year... and I am completely overwhelmed.

Not simply another perfect family dog, Sarah is MY dog in every way. She follows me about from room to room - so much that I sometimes just want to tell her to stay, I will be right back, but it doesn't matter, she will follow and just lay down by the door and wait.

It seems as though her life is full of waiting...

First, waiting for me to wake up. When she hears me stir, she leaps off her Mickey Mouse dog bed (thanks, Judy!) in the corner of my bedroom, bounds over to my side of the bed and places her head on the mattress scant inches from mine, looks at me, tail wagging, until I open my eyes and look into her shining brown ones.

Indeed, hers is the very first face I see, not that of my husband, who sleeps beside me every single night, but my pretty Golden.

My acknowledgement of her presence sends her into barely contained excitement: her tail wags so hard her backside violently sways back and forth in a frenzied undulation of joy... and she waits for me to arise. I finally get up and head for the bathroom and she collapses heavily at the door - fooooom - her entire body weight leaning against the door so that when I open it, she halfway falls into the bathroom, unabashedly leaps up and her tail and body wags all over again in pure and simple joy that I have reappeared.

I head downstairs to make coffee, and Sarah's enthusiastic appreciation for the morning compels her to madly gallop down stairs just ahead of me. She dashes to the back door and looks back at me, hoping I am going to run and play outside with her.

Capricious and unfeeling non-morning person that I am, I head directly to the coffeemaker, measure out aromatic grounds, turn on the machine and wait rather impatiently for the brew to descend into the carafe.

And so she waits, too, sitting down next to the back door, patiently watching my every move.

Finally, hot cup of coffee sweetened with sugar, half and half and a touch of chocolate warming my hands, I unlock and open the back door, and she slithers out the dog door next to me, pranching across the dewy lawn, looking back with her Golden "smile", so very happy to greet the day with me.

It is a lovely way to start the day, caffeine slowing singing through my system, walking barefoot across the grass to sit in the swing under three very large Mulberry trees, with Sarah sitting on my feet (too hot, but awfully sweet) and gazing up at me with loving brown eyes.

Life is good!

Just Musing,
Susan



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