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.