Peggy’s Story
Hi, I’m Peggy, although I also answer to Pegs and probably several other things depending on what I’ve been up to.
I came to live with Mummy when I was a puppy. She’d never had a dog before, although she had lived with cats, so I think she felt reasonably well prepared for my arrival.
There were games to play, things to investigate and an entire world outside that Mummy appeared to be completely overlooking.
I soon cleared up that misunderstanding. 😂
Before me, Mummy had spent a very long time working incredibly hard. She worked from home, which seemed terribly convenient to her, but rather less convenient to me because it involved sitting at a desk for hours when there were clearly far more important things we could have been doing. – I was a puppy and I had needs.
Sitting quietly while she worked was never really going to be my contribution to the household. So, life with me required a few adjustments, a few were fairly minor and others, as it turned out, were rather bigger.
One of the first things I introduced properly into Mummy’s life was walking. Every day we went out together, and somewhere along the way she started noticing what was around us. There were flowers appearing at different times of the year, deer she might never otherwise have seen and all sorts of little changes happening as the seasons passed. She even started taking photographs of them, building up a sort of timeline of everything we were discovering on our walks.
Then there were the people; I’m considerably more outgoing than Mummy, so naturally I took responsibility for this department too. We began chatting to people on our walks, met another family with a sausage dog and even acquired some walking and playtime friends and Mummy says she wouldn’t have done any of that before she had me.
Personally, I’ve never understood the difficulty; I find people fascinating and generally assume they’ll be delighted to meet me; oh and apparently, I’m particularly partial to tall men with deep voices.
There was one occasion when I marched into a pub garden, spotted two complete strangers and became convinced I knew them. There was jumping onto laps, rolling around, and then some rather enthusiastic flirting, owing to the excitement of it all, my grand finale – a small incident involving the floor. Fortunately, they thought I was wonderful and said I’d made their day, and yes I’m proud to say I have that effect on people. 😂
At home, Mummy and I have developed our own methods of communication, if I want something, for example; I sit down and look extremely pleased with myself. I’ve performed a trick after all, and I think we can all agree that payment should follow.
Daycare has since taught me to offer my paw, which means I now have a useful second option if sitting alone fails to produce the required result.
And then there’s the stare – Mummy says I simply look at her until she works out what I want; she runs through the possibilities while I wait patiently.
Ball? No. Walk? No. Garden? Correct.
The staring stops and I must say I think she’s coming along beautifully. 🐾
Balls themselves are another important part of our relationship. I particularly enjoy playing with one beside a piece of furniture, allowing it to disappear underneath and then asking Mummy to retrieve it and once she has done so, I sometimes put it straight back underneath.
Mummy believes this is deliberate and there is no evidence to support this allegation.
Although I should probably disclose that some of my favourite squeaky balls are now kept in the fridge so I can’t smell them. Make of that what you will. 😂
For all my independence, adventures and important household responsibilities, my favourite place to sleep is Mummy’s lap and perhaps that tells you quite a lot about us. ❤️
Because when Mummy first began talking to Claire about me, she thought she was telling her about a puppy who had turned her life completely upside down. Which, to be fair, I had, but as they talked, all the other pieces began appearing too.
The desk she no longer spent every waking hour sitting behind. The walks, the flowers, the deer; the people she’d met and the conversations she now had with strangers. The places we went together and this whole different rhythm of life that had somehow grown up around the two of us with none of it arriving with a grand announcement.
It just happened, one walk, one conversation and one ridiculous Peggy incident at a time. Somewhere in the middle of telling our story Mummy realised something – perhaps I hadn’t simply turned her life upside down, perhaps it had needed turning upside down a little.
Mummy called me a blessing in disguise. But I’m not entirely sure about the disguise as I thought I’d been fairly obvious from the beginning.
I’m Peggy ❤️
Love Peggy 🐾
A Little Note From Claire ❤️
When Peggy’s mum first started telling me about Princess Pegs, as she very quickly became known to me 😂, she was worried her story might sound sad.
There’s nothing sad about their story; I heard about a little sausage dog who had arrived in her life and changed its rhythm completely.
Peggy got her Mummy away from her desk and out walking. She made her notice what was happening outside; she introduced her to people she might otherwise never have spoken to and she brought with her an enormous personality, a fair amount of chaos and apparently an ongoing requirement to retrieve balls from underneath the furniture.
It was only as we talked about all those seemingly separate little things that the bigger story began to appear.
That’s one of the reasons my Discovery Calls matter so much to me.
I’m not looking for a dramatic story. I’m certainly not trying to create one – I simply want to listen because it’s the things that seem completely ordinary when you’re living them every day turn out to say rather a lot about the relationship you have.
Just like Princess Pegs and her Mummy when you start talking about your dog and realise that somewhere along the way, they quietly changed your world. ❤️
That’s who I want to know before they come through my door.
Not just what they look like.
Who they are, who they are to you and all the wonderfully ridiculous little things that make them unmistakably them.
Claire x
