But back to Puppy Maud! She is extremely cute, as evidenced here.
She is very funny, as puppies are, and has great hobbies like trying to eat the breath of humans, sleeping on her back with her legs spread, and chewing up my books. Can you guess which of these hobbies I find the least endearing?
I can hear you all, trust me: You’re hollering at me, “Puppy-proof your house so your puppy can’t eat your books! Keep the puppy away from the books!” I’d love to! Unfortunately, but actually fortunately, my house is built of books! They are everywhere! I do make an effort to tuck them up in the ceiling, but she takes after her aerialist namesake and can swing from the rafters, no problem. Plus my husband is constantly leaving the door to our library open, which is the actual problem.
And the thing is, I’m pretty sure she’s trying to tell me something with her choice of books. Is she chewing in an effort to get help? Does she want to anger me? Is she trying to explain to me why she wants so badly to get into the litter box and eat my cats’ poop?
I’ve done a very close analysis of the books she’s chosen. Let’s see if I’ve cracked the code.
There you have, the books she has so far nibbled on or chewed through. Does her selection really mean anything or is it all arbitrary? Perhaps someone smarter than I am can crack the code.
At first, I assumed she chose this because she wanted a little cup of milk, or maybe some blood sausage? Surely she wasn’t looking for heat as she’s a winter dog that loves the snow and hates humidity.
But then I remembered that the stories take place in Florida. My mom just moved to Florida so I can only assume this was Maud’s way of feeling close to her. Very sweet!
The book is about a community in 1619 that tried a woman for being a witch. She was falsely prosecuted (if you can believe it) so perhaps that’s the angle Maud felt drawn to. She probably remembers that story I told her about the time I was in elementary school and the neighbor kid snitched on me for something I didn’t do but no one believed me. I got a spanking and I got grounded! Basically the same thing as the character in this book that’s persecuted for witchhood.
The destruction of this one was a particular bummer because the book had a lot of great pictures in it. I’m going to guess that’s the reason Maud was drawn to it, but I’ll also guess that once she was done chewing up 20% of it, she’d gotten a great education about the history of the Black Panther party. I know I did when I read it.
I assume she was just curious about the types of wounds she might encounter in her future, or perhaps she liked the hands on the cover and thought they were going to give her a couple of good pets.
Or maybe she’s had a harder life than I know and would like to, I don’t know, bark to someone about it? Or maybe she thinks I should get back into therapy? At a second glance, this one is not as easy as I thought!
