Today's Subject...Bitsy

It's long overdue – a post about my dog.

My family had a few dogs I think before I was born. There was one mutt however, Wally – we only had a short time together; I was too little to remember him. The rumor is that Wally "ran away."

Then after multiple hamsters, bunnies?, turtles, and fish there was Duchess. Duchess was the family cat. I remember she had one blue eye and one green eye, and she was brown. Sadly, the pet we all loved is a faint memory now. My brother used to torture Duchess, (don't worry he didn't put her in the microwave,) and she woke me and my sister in the middle of the night because she was crunching a mouse. My parents "took Duchess to an Old Lady's House" on a Sunday. My siblings and I didn't notice until the following Thursday. In fact, it wasn't even us who realized she was gone. It was my best friend who was over for the day. Can you imagine?

"Uh, Leslie...Where's your cat?"

Calling out: "Duchess? Here kitty, kitty!"

Cricket, Cricket...

(Now if I wrote movies I would insert a scene here where I find a goodbye note from the cat that says she's sorry but she hates it here and has to leave to pursue her dreams, I would fall down to my knees with tears, screaming into the air with bursts of sadness, of course it would have to be raining outside.)

So after that, we didn't have a pet for a while aside from the random fish.

Flash forward 22 years.

I got an email from my sister with a cute little picture of this black and grey furball of a puppy. The subject line was – We got a dog! They named her Bitsy. One day Bitsy came to my house and never left! I stole her. Or should I say, she stole me? We had a connection and my sister could see the love between us and that it couldn't be denied. She became my pet, and has been for about two and half years now.

Bitsy is funny, and tonight I am inspired to write about her because of something funny that she did tonight when I got home from work. We did our normal meet and greet. You know, if you are any good dog owner, meet and greet consists of jumps, tail wagging so fast she actually elevates, kisses, belly rubs, ear scratches and a treat. She needs to be let out to use the yard and she sees a toad on the back patio. He's sitting on the cool concrete, relaxing enjoying his evening after a hard day's work. Out of nowhere he is attacked by this huge, furry creature with delicate paws and a snorting nose in the process of seeking a huge sniff of him. If I was that toad I would be crying for my mother with my thumb in my mouth and in need of a new pair of undies.

So he jumps a bit, scaring the big furry creature into jumping a bit as well. And so it is, this dog and toad game went on for 30 minutes. Bitsy would not give up. She was determined to figure out what this thing was, and the toad was determined to still motionless for for a minute in hopes the grizzly beast won't find it.

The whole dance made me laugh, and it made me appreciate the jovial curiosity each of them had for each other. Toad eventually got away and Bits eventually forgot. But I'd like to think we made a new pet friend tonight. Mr. Toad and Bitsy...sounds like a series we can add to the family.