The Last to Know

So much has changed in this house in the last six months. Duncan disappeared in January, leaving me without a companion. He just left with the Big Guy and didn't come back with the Big Guy. His collar is hanging from the lamp on the Big Guy's desk. the Big Guy showed it to me, and I was excited, because even though it has been washed it still smells like Duncan. I looked for Duncan for a minute, but he wasn't there.

I used to hang out with Duncan, but now I follow Mommy around a lot more. Some days I won't let her out of my sight.

Mommy smells different and does not let me step on her tummy any more. Her belly is big so it is harder to sit on her lap, so I wind up sitting next to her on the big chair or on the sofa with my chin on her knee. I don't have much of a chin, so its position is precarious and I wind up moving my chin anyway.

Shortly after Duncan left, the Big Guy demolished the upstairs bathroom, including the old drywall and the lath and plaster that it hid, opening up the house to the attic beyond. It would have been so exciting to explore, but I was never allowed in there because I am small, curious, and do not wear shoes.

Lately, the house has been full of workmen who come in and out and up and down the stairs all day long and I wonder what they are doing up there, but I am not allowed to follow them, because I am curious and like to get really close to the action so I can see and smell exactly what is going on. So, I am a good girl and I stay downstairs on the sofa and bark at the people as they come in and go out.

I, Poppy, am usually a very adaptable pug, but lately I have been visibly aware of feeling displaced. The upstairs smells like new paint, so I only like to stay there for a few minutes. Mommmy and the Big Guy are now sleeping in the front room, and although my bed is in there, too, it is much farther away from the big bed than it is when we sleep in the other room because the new room is small, and Mommy does not want to step on me when she wakes up in the morning. I have had to be crated twice in the last week while Mommy runs errands and the workmen go in and out of the house.

Even my food bowl was broken. Baby Cousin did it. Now I eat out of bowls from the cupboard, like some sort of vagabond dog.

All I can do now is lie here on this rug in my winter position -- not my spread-eagled, superpug summer stance, with my hind legs out behind me and my forelegs in front as if I am flying through the air. No. Now my hind legs are under me, sheltered, and my chin is resting on my forepaws. I look up at you with wide eyes, as if asking when all of the chaos will end.