'My life as a dog'

Dramatics I meant 'with a dog'. Yes literally, we brought home a three month old Labrador cross last week. Two sleepless nights and days later I was absolutely mortified. I could not believe we had done that. I, since I was a child had never owned a dog. Same goes with the hubby. We were both debating how to pass it along. However the Apple of my son's eye is so cute that we're SLOWLY warming to it. Oh yes everyday hubby and I deliberate how to get rid of it but my son's growing affection for it has stopped us from doing so. I think it'll be one of those things that traumatises a child. "I'll never forget the day my mum and dad gave away my dog" choo hooo and so the dog stays. 

But having said all that, not-so-little Apple is a fast learner and a smart dog to our relief. Some dog lover friends had said Labs were stupid, personally I cannot tell the differences in intelligence from one dog to another but I do appreciate it when they learn what we teach it to do! After a couple of accidents in the house we're making sure it is outside of the house at reasonable times to do it's business to avoid any further mishaps.

My idea of owning a dog, is that of what I grew up with in Samoa. The dog slept outside or on a porch or in the faleka'avale but just not in our sleeping house. I loved to play with it, make sure it's fed but our home being a huge open fagua/land there was plenty of space for it to do their dirty business so that wasn't much trouble. And then like any other dog owner I was utterly shattered when each of them died, at one time due to an asshole named I'u in our village who was armed with a sapelu/machete. Just about sliced our dog Cindy's head off. I never could look at that guy the same anymore...he was a murderer forever in my eyes. Cindy was a beautiful reddish dog that was part dingo. A tourist arrived with it in a basket and just left it with us. We loved that dog, she was part of our family. 

Back to our dog Apple; whom my son, thanks to his aunty C's prompting, named it after his favourite fruit. Her's is Strawberry. Yep we're getting all the jokes from friends about it... Well it's like we have a new baby in some ways but we're getting used to having it around the house. At the moment now that it's not very hot anymore we're trying to teach it to stay outdoors. That is training in progress, at the moment it scratches the doors and tries to open the door handle to come back in! 
To be continued...