Away early again. We won all five games, with the four of us all playing well. Ended up tied for second. Which is pretty good as some of the teams were stacked.
Home by 5. To bed early as we were all tired from two days of heavy duty bowls.  One. Day to go till we head of for Ireland.
I'll add an extra bit of Uncle Jerry this time as it will be three weeks before I'll be able to add again.

The three adults all agreed that it was a fine name, they turned and started to visit with each other, my new friend and I proceeded to get really acquainted.

  At first he was very careful and seemed afraid that he might hurt me.  But I was ready for a bit of rough stuff so I had to teach him how to play my style.  It wasn’t long before we were outside and rolling around on the grass and leaves.

  Grandma as I now knew she was to be called only stayed for a couple of days as these new humans that I had adopted lived in a very small house and sleeping places were apparently difficult.  I sometimes wondered how they would have made out with a total of twelve occupants in a basket as I did in the beginning.

  That day I learned that John’s mother was called both Mom and Violet but that was a bit difficult and I quickly came to think of her as Mom.  John’s dad was also called John but often he was called John senior, John called him Dad but I settled on thinking of him as Senior, after all he was the biggest and after Grandma was the oldest.

  Those first few days had their difficult moments, everyone seemed to object to me answering calls of nature wherever I might be standing. At first I resisted the idea of always going outside but then they started giving me a whack and when I still refused they rubbed my nose into what I had done. Fine! If that’s they way they wanted to play the game, I would go outside.  Once I had decided to go along with the idea, I woke them up a few times to be put out.  Hah, there was some grumbling about that but one night they left me out so I then decided to change tactics.  After everyone was asleep, I found an old shoe or was it a slipper? Doesn’t matter, I found it and I chewed it into pieces.  The next day there was some scolding but that night I found the mate to the first was in my bed.  I chewed on it for a bit but somehow the challenge was gone so I left some of it for another day.

  The days just sort of blurred for a while, one day was like another but one day, it must have been two or three months later, John and I were out wandering about. I found and started following some enticing smells and John tagged along behind. After a little while we passed through a thick patch of small trees and I heard John calling me and telling me to wait for him.  It was a tough decision but I stopped until he caught up, would you believe it – he was blubbering!

  “Jerry where are we, where’s home?” he cried.

  I tried to reply but just couldn’t squeeze the words out, so I just looked at him and wagged my tail.  Then with a flash of inspiration, I turned around and pointed my nose to where I was pretty sure home was, then thinking at him as hard as I could I tried to think him into holding me by my scruff. You know what? It worked, it actually worked! He was still snuffling but he grabbed me by the loose skin on my neck and let me lead him. In only a few minutes we were out of the bush and there just a short distance away was our home!  I will say that he was gracious enough to give me a hug and thank me. 

  I learned a lesson that day; there was some opinion amongst the humans that he was my boss (or master) but I would always remember that although maybe he was technically my boss, I was his guardian. 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 4

T

he summer went by quickly, then autumn and winter came.  I grew quite quickly and eventually my size apparently caused a problem and one evening when I decided to go to my bed it wasn’t in it’s corner.  Very shortly I was escorted outside where all three of the family made a big to-do about a wooden box with a roof that they insisted on calling my house.

  House! I already had a house and I had no problem sharing; but in the end somewhat against my will I was relegated to this ‘new house’.

  Actually after I got used to it I found that it wasn’t too bad.  I had more freedom and I learned all on my own to take care of things around our yard, my guardianship grew in responsibility.

  I learned also that although John was supposed to make sure I was fed and had water, it was usually Mom that did it.  With Senior I was at first a little apprehensive, he was away a lot of the time but it became clear that he was also a friend.  When I got a chance to be under the table when the three had a meal I could count on him to slip me something to eat.

  One of the things I learned was that whatever my three people ate Mom was sure to prepare some of it for me, mind you she always slipped in a few vegetables that I was sometimes successful in spitting out. It was years before I really appreciated my meals, it was when I found that other dogs were fed either some kind of dry stuff or horrible smelling stuff out of a can. It was easy to tell the canned stuff was made out of things no one wanted. Yuk!

  Winter passed then spring came and one day everyone was kind of excited, the word was we were moving!  What the heck was moving?  I didn’t know but I got excited too and ran around letting out small barks.  I was quite happy when John got down on the ground with me and we got into one of our wrestling matches, it sort of let off some steam, so to speak.

  Then a few days later, everything we owned (it wasn’t much) was piled into the back of the truck I had arrived in.  All four of us rode up front. That was really pretty neat. John with me on his lap sat against the door with the window rolled partly down and for the first time I was enjoying that exhilarating feeling of hanging out of the window of a moving vehicle! So this was what moving meant.

  We drove along for about an hour, we must have traveled a long distance at the speed we were going.  Finally we came to a small village, Senior said something about Lund a couple times.  We stopped and soon we (I say we because I helped by running about and making sure we were all OK) were unloading the truck and packing our boxes down onto what I learned was a float.  They had been talking about getting on a boat, the only thing I saw was this wooden thing sitting in the water. I was about to learn there are boats and there are boats!  A strange man came and talked to Senior, I was going to challenge him but Senior told me it was OK and I learned that his name was Charley.

  Very soon the boat was loaded, and Senior told us all to get on board. The motor started with a great roar and Charley untied the ropes and pushed us away from the float. John and I sat at the very back and watched as we moved out past other boats and some small islands.  We went across the water much slower than the truck had gone and traveled on for several hours, finally arriving at another float.  Senior tied up the boat, went on shore and after a little while came back with another truck. They unloaded and reloaded our boxes. I thought we were going for another ride but instead Mom said, “John we will walk, both you and Jerry need to stretch your legs.”

  Sounded good to me.  We walked up a gangway onto a dock then along the dock to a large building a short distance away.  It was what they were calling a hotel, this was where we would be living.  Everything had to be packed up some stairs and where we were going to live was one big room.  There wasn’t much in it but one thing that I liked the look of was a mattress on the floor that was John’s bed. This would be quite convenient I thought then found that my house had been stored outside and that was where I was to sleep. Hmmph!

  Nevertheless this was the first day of what turned out to be a pretty good summer.  There were no other dogs around so I was pretty well in charge of everything outside and the older couple that also lived in the hotel often brought me treats.  There were two blips that weren’t so good.  The first was when we all piled in the truck and went out to a lake and went fishing. On the way home later in the day I was riding in the back of the truck (my first time by myself). I was sort of leaning out over the side of the truck when it hit a bump and I fell out, I must have sort of landed on my head because everything went black.  When I woke up Senior was holding me, Mom and John were both crying but they quickly started to laugh when I opened my eyes and struggled to get down.  I was kind of sore the rest of the day but the good part was I got to sleep inside and on John’s bed that night.  This was a little life lesson that I never forgot; if I was hurting I got special treatment and sometimes special food. I would take advantage of this in the years to come.

  The other incident was when John was playing with some other boys, he climbed up a tree then fell out and hurt himself.  I had to stay with the old couple for two days while John was taken away to someplace they called hospital.  When he came home he had a large white thing wrapped around one arm.  I got to sleep with him again the night he got home, I guess it was more like he got me than I got him.

  All to soon summer ended and our belongings were packed up and loaded back on the boat, we were moving again, but this time I knew what moving meant.