Give Back the Change!

Sailor here.

Mom kept telling me that things were going to change around here.

What things? I don’t remember the last change around here, unless it was when our latest collie rescue, DeeDee, showed up. And stayed. And stayed. I don’t mind, though. I think I like her, and I know she likes me. She gives my ruff love bites every chance she gets. And she barks at me, too. I think she’s saying how handsome and wonderful I am.

Mom said things are going to change, and two days ago, they did.

What has changed is that I have become a grumpy old man. Hmmph. Mom spends all her time with this strange puppy who is beginning to smell less and less like Strange and more and more like Family. His name is Jib or Jibby or Jibaroo or PuppyPuppyPuppy. Unlike many puppies I have known (shudder), his name is not NoNoBadDog. Which is probably a good thing for him, but he makes me look bad. I wish he’d become NoNoBadDog instead of me.

My name is changing From Sailor-boy to NoNoSailorLeaveIt whenever the puppy gets in my face, or my ruff, or my, er, other stuff. I feel obliged to snarl and raise my lip and let the Interloper know that This Is Not Polite. Mom would rather I walk away, but how do you walk away when a Little Pest is hanging on to your kilts? Besides, DeeDee loves him and lets him hang on her lower lip and she doesn't even give him The Look.

Mom plays with The Pest and gets up many times during my sleep-dream-dark cycle to take him outside. She says she is Sleep Prived. I say she is worse than that. She acts like her brain has fallen out of her ears. She has forgotten to feed me right on time, and she has forgotten how to give me scritches. Instead, she listens to puppy screeches.

And she leaves me outside when the puppy is inside and brings me inside when the puppy is outside. She is big on Management, and I don’t particularly like being Managed. At least she is managing DeeDee, too. DeeDee has to be outside when the puppy is inside and inside when the puppy is outside. That’s because DeeDee actually loves the puppy too much and can be rough when she wants to play with him. Mom says we will both get to play with Jib when he is bigger.

I am hoping he will be bigger in another place, like Mom’s rescues are, and go to a nice forever home and leave Mom all to myself again. And maybe he will take DeeDee with him.

And “Jib.” What kind of a name is that? I thought the least Mom could do was name him something that goes with Sailor, like Hardtack or Scurvy or Keelhaul. I think I will call him Bilgewater.

Mom says all puppies are a pain in the kilts, but that this puppy is really a good puppy. Already, in two days, he has learned to sit, and down, and come, and stand, and poop and pee outside when Mom takes him. He had his nails clipped and didn’t play foot tug like I do. Mom trimmed his feet, too, and he only chewed the scissors three times. Mom says he is so good because his first Mom who was Responsible gave him a really good start in life.

Mom doesn’t see things the way they really are. This Bilgewater thing takes up way more time than he should. He cries sometimes when Mom goes in another room. He wakes us up at night and gets to go with Mom outside when I have to stay in my bed. He wants to pester me all the time, he makes DeeDee bark at him, and he gets LUNCH! Lunch, I tell you!

Mom says he’s just being a puppy, but I think he’s being a puppy-pain.

I was never like this, was I?