Dog and Baby Show

It is well known by his admirers that my old boy Arthur is a terrier of surpassing manliness, in an anthropomorphised world where, yes, this house attributes gendered values to its animals for fun. Truly, he is the Thomas Wyatt of Norwich Terriers: hunter, wooer, courtier, diplomat and poet (the last one wholly metaphorically). Whoso list to hunt, he knows where is an hedgehog.

That is the first fact.

The new baby takes happy comfort from a pacifier as she makes the transition from feeding to sleeping, or winding to sleeping, or staring at shadows and bright colours to sleeping. However, she can also with mighty power spit the pacifier distances both large and small.

That is the second fact.

Last night we were looking for the pacifier as she yelled (no baby, no cry; it is certainly a yell) in her bassinet, when from under the bed emerged my manliest of dogs, holding delicately and correctly in his mouth the missing pacifier. It had been a rough couple of hours of disgruntled baby to the extent that the the señor and I thought this the funniest thing we had seen.  Harrowed pelvic floor be damned; I laughed; he laughed; the baby stopped yelling and Arthur stood both proud and confused at our feet.

I ran from the room to find something on which to take a photo, whose haste and flash captures very little of the moment. (We could sterilise the pacifier and use it again, I said to the señor. You can’t tell people this story and then end it with that, he said. I threw it away.)

Tagged as: baby