26 Aug. 1998
And God saw that the young beast was undisciplined, and did relieve itself carelessly in unsuitable places, and did devastate the shoes and the books and the fingers of men with
its teeth, and did as well whine very sorrowfully and very loudly all the night. And God saw this, and knew that no man nor indeed any woman would desire to raise up such a beast. And so God gave to the beast a thick coat of fur that made the beast soft to the woman's touch, and deep, intelligent eyes, and a tail which did not cease from wagging, and big fuzzy ears which were all very fair in the sight of the woman. And God made the beast to lick the face of the woman, and to love the woman, and did call the beast "puppy". And God saw what He had done, that it was good.
And the woman took the puppy home and they did love each other. But the woman saw that the puppy was indeed undisciplined and did tirelessly seek to destroy her house. Then the woman said to the puppy, "No longer shall you mess in the house, but henceforth you shall do your business outside." And the woman did praise the puppy greatly when it relieved itself in the woods, but was not pleased, no, not even a little bit, when the puppy did relieve itself on the bed.- And the puppy came to understand the woman's meaning when she did utter, "No!"
And the woman showed to the puppy bones of rawhide, and tennis balls, and rags tied in knots, and said to the puppy that it might chew on these toys. "But," said the woman, "No longer shall you chew up my hands or my feet, nor my best shoes, nor Grampa's cane, nor Shakespeare nor any other book, nor chocolate bars, nor underwear stolen from the laundry basket, nor my towel after I bathe, nor any piece of furniture, nor your own excretion, nor anything else that I do not give to you as a toy. Neither shall you remove refuse from the trash baskets and strew it about the house in a decorative manner, nor drink from the toilet. Neither shall you jump on hapless visitors nor on the screen door nor on Grampa as he naps in his recliner. Yea, though you only desire to show your love, you shall not, for now your weight is eighty pounds and you do have frightful claws."
And the puppy sat and listened solemnly to the woman, and considered what she said, and licked her face when she had finished. And the woman, pleased, departed for work and returned. And, lo, the puppy once again threw itself upon her and jumped up and down with great joy upon dictionary pages
B through S which were scattered about and upon the unmentionable items from the bathroom trash strewn upon the furniture and in the pools of water around the toilet. And then the woman did take the puppy to puppy kindergarten, and did set frightful snapping mouse traps upon the bathroom trash and the toilet seat and the book shelf. And once again the puppy remembered the meaning of the woman when she uttered, "No!"
And it came to pass that the puppy did learn to sit and to heel and to stay and to come when the woman uttered these phrases, and the woman was well pleased. And in the puppy's
second year the woman sat the puppy down and said, "Now you are no longer a puppy. You have grown and learned much, and henceforth you shall be called Dog." And the woman and the dog did often walk in the woods and did leap from rock to rock in the pond and did climb over downed trees. And together they did eat of the berries and swim during the summer months, and together they did snap the dead branches off bushes and dig through the heavy snows which pinned the birch tops to the earth during the winter months. And though the dog did always seek to flee from all other dogs in a; manner most cowardly (yea, even small puppies reaching only(to its knees), yet the dog did stand valiantly between the woman and any strangers they did meet. And, indeed, the dog tifid bark to warn the woman when the grandfather carelessly wandered outside, and did lead the way out of strange woods when the woman was unsure. The dog was ever at the feet of the woman. The woman was well pleased with the dog, and did thank God greatly for His creation.
