My little sister?

Fuzzy head, excessive facial hair, and a big funny looking nose, I know what your thinking, " Its gotta be some relative of Teddy's." But she aint no kin on mine, blood relation at least ;) This goofy looking ball of whitish fluff is my mothers poodle Natalie. She also answers to doodle bug, pom-pom head, fuzzy wuzzy, but generally just "Hey Poodle!" Pretty much anything that has to do with fluff, or rhymes with poodle.

So by now you are wondering why I am rambling on about something that only the very boredest of you might care about, well... The night after taking this picture, I lay awake until at least 2:30 thinking about this big cotton wad, and all of the little adventures we have had together. Needless to say, I was too busy laughing to sleep. So if ya don't mind, I think I'm gonna share just a couple.

As far back as I can remember, I thought that I wanted a dog to take in the woods with me. My problem was that my mother raised Shih-Tzu's, and roaming the forests with a pack of ankle high, longhaired, "woodchucks" with bad attitudes, just didn't fit the romantic picture I had in my head. So I spent years teasing for a big dog, a german shepherd, husky, retriever, lab, anything manly that I could take with me on my expeditions into "the forbidden forests" that I routinely enjoyed trespassing on. So imagine my surprise when I was about 15yrs old, and my parents called me and told me that they got a puppy! I was so excited, I can still see that front door opening (in slow motion) as Natalie comes running across the kitchen floor to me. About half way across, I started to get the suspicion that this might not be the manly dog I put my order in for. Lol "What!? you got a poodle! Why are you doing this to me! I can't go out in public with that!" etc... After much deliberation, and possibly even a few tears, I secured a promise that she would never, ever be given a poodle cut. " The fact of what she truly is, must never leave this room! O.k?" Lol

So now I have fallen in love with her, and we are about ready to head off into the snow covered hills for our first big trek, but there is one problem. Natalie has a habit of running away and being gone for hours before returning home, and if any of you have ever tried to walk a dog on a leash in the woods, you know that invariably if you will pick the left side of the tree they pick the right, and vice versa. So I quickly find the perfect solution. I took a long strip of soft leather, and hobbled her front legs together and we were off! So now instead of little woodchucks, I have a big floppy eared, cropped tailed, white rabbit hopping happily behind me as I explore. That worked wonderful, until her hairy feet collected big snow balls that froze to her fur. So from then on she wore 2 pairs of my socks, held on with rubber bands, and her hobbles. It was just like I had always imagined! I finally had my manly woods dog! Lol ;)

Just a couple of years down the road, and I am working on an OOLD fashioned farm that lies exactly 5 miles away. I was much more full of energy than I could ever hope to be again, and I loved to run. So I would get up bright and early every morning run to work, work a long hard day, and run home, and most days never think anything of it. Weekend would come, and with no place I had to run to, I would go out for an even longer run just for the fun of it. Well one day, I decided that Natalie might like to go with me. So we take off and she is dragging me for quite a while, of course I enjoy it because it gives me a challenge to keep up with her. well a few more miles into it, we are keeping pretty good time with each other, and we keep going. (probably both panting with our tongues out. :) At what I figured up was about 8 miles, Natalie puts on the brakes and collapses in exhaustion. I am kind of smug and proud of myself at this point, that I won the race, so I start to walk back towards home and she is too tired to stand, let alone walk. So I put her up on my shoulders and head home, probably looking for all the vehicles passing by like a shepherd heading home with his little lost lamb. A while down the road she starts getting restless up there, so I put her down and let her walk. Half way home, we are passing this house and I see it has a big black dog in front of it. I walk a little more quitely, Natalie fully recuperated by this time, starts barking and growling and tugging on her leash. The black dog, sees us and takes off running at full speed not looking one bit happy to see us. He is gaining ground, more than half way to us now, and my loud mouthed lamb starts to think twice about what she started and she literally jumps into my arms!!! Lol you should of seen it, here I am holding this big fluffy whimpy poodle up as high above my head as I could, as that dog is barking and growling at us standing just a few feet away. Luckily the woman who owns him was in their garage and came rushing out to save us, after apologies were exchanged we set back off for home. A short ways down the road I tried to set her down, but she was very sure by this point that she was going to ride out the rest of this horrible trip I forced her to go on with me. Lol

This is only the beginning, but it is sufficient to say that I have come to appreciate that clown regardless of breed. ;) She absolutely loves to stand up and wrap her fluffy little arms around my waist and give me a "poodle hug" while I rub her soft curly little head, and it has become a ritual that is expected of me every time I am leaving, or coming home. If I forget to, I am not easily forgiven. Lol So much for a manly dog, I wonder how huskys feel about hugging?