Gotcha!

- by Chips

Today is our gotcha day. It is 6 years since TJam learnt why people say you should never get two dogs at the same time. 6 years since she learnt the wisdom in not just turning up at the dogs' home with the intention of getting, "2 black dogs". 6 years to ponder why someone would put a 5 month old puppy in the home because it was too boisterous. 6 years to wonder how anyone managed to actually dump me, Chips, the GPS/velcro dog, and get away from me long enough for me to become stray.

And so it was, that fateful night 6 years ago, that TJam drove home with her two black dogs in the boot of her Nissan Micra (parcel shelf removed), and that I had to stand in a pool of Beanz's carsickness and a little diarrhea to boot.

She brought us into the house. Beanz was a lot cuter than I remember actually:

and although she was very energetic, she got tired easily.

I came into the house and jumped straight into my cardboard box bed and tackled a raw hide chew.

I was already grown up so there are no cute or embarrassing puppy pictures of me. I also had a new collar that I had not had a chance to decorate with fox poo yet.

Those first couple of days, we didn't know that Beanz would soon be seeing the sea for the first time, and being not very impressed with it:

We didn't know that she would like sand:

It was a few days before I raided my first bag of dog food (although I did manage an entire, 5 days worth saucepan of chick pea curry while TJam had nipped to the loo during the "simmer gently" phase).

And TJam was blissfully unaware that I was soon to jump through our 7x3 foot window (since reinforced) and prance up and down the main road into town until the farmer managed to catch me and call the police so they could go and get TJam from work so she could take me to the vet and I could have 7 staples and remove 4 of them myself by the time TJam had paid for my treatment.

TJam also didn't know that the window would be outsize and need ordering, so our house would be boarded up for 3 days.

Nope, at that time, we were just two bewildered dogs, getting to know our new home. I established my place at the top of the food chain quickly of course, while Beanz was still smaller than me. Imagine. She was the small one!

And that night (in the days when people still had video cassettes as you can see. You may need to google "video cassettes". They were like audio casettes but.... you've never heard of an audio cassette? floppy disc? oh never mind), we cuddled up together and got into the new vibe.

Happy gotcha day to us and I wonder if TJam will make us a special tea to celebrate.