Porcupine

I had something entirely different and wholly un-animal related to write about tonight until I walked downstairs.  I was putting a DVD up in the rack in our storage room and when I walked back out, I saw my dog, holding her porcupine in her mouth.

My dog is small, although overweight, at eleven pounds.  She is in late middle age at nine years and doesn't like to play much any more, mostly because she has two bad knees.  When she was young, her patellas would dislocate and stay dislocated on both hind legs so it was surgery for her in the hopes she'd have a more comfortable life. 

She has been more comfortable, but arthritis is setting in now and she's not as agile as she was.  She's been on a diet for some time, but the children dropping crumbs and leaving food in easy reach hasn't helped her figure.  In short, she doesn't play any more.

But she has this one toy from when she was a puppy that she still loves.  It's a porcupine that's not a dog toy at all.  It's a hand puppet, and a fancy hand puppet at that as it was purchased for her at FAO Schwartz in Las Vegas and given to her as a gift.  The spikes on the porcupine are longer sections of fur, and it's done well enough that it's very clear the little brown furry thing on the floor is a porcupine--or at least it was some years ago.

It's been washed and slept on and loved for a long time now.  What she most wants though, is for the porcupine to come to life.  She wants you to put your hand in it and move it around and make it act like it's alive.  She wants to bite on it (not hard) and have it bite back at her with your hand.  There are holes all in this thing, but it still magically comes alive when you pick it up.

My daughter wants to play with the dog and has been trying to figure the porcupine technique out.  So far, the dog has met her attempts with skepticism. 

So tonight when I came out of the back room to see my little old lady dog holding up the porcupine that's over half her size, looking at me longingly for some play time, I had to get down on the floor and make the hand puppet come to life.

The Big Boy Update:  The alligator story.  He and Mimi were busy with an interactive alligator story today.  She would talk about the alligator and how he was down at the stream and how he was dirty and would my son help by sharing some of his soap and maybe some toys too.  My son got very engaged in this story, leaving the table several times to bring a bar of soap or a toy to show Mimi what he was going to share with his new alligator friend.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Sing along songs.  My daughter is getting better and better at singing along to songs.  She will ask for a specific song and then sing along right in time with it.  My son likes songs, but didn't show the same interest in singing as my daughter did from a very young age.  Some days, I think she wakes up and goes to bed without having stopped singing.