The Misadventures of the Puppy, Max

Hi there!  My name is Max.  I'm about two months old (but I'm younger in this picture).

About a month ago I lived in a nice, warm little shed with my mom and a bunch of brothers and sisters.  A nice man and lady took care of us.  After a while, some of my brothers and siblings started to go away with other nice people.  I didn't mind too much.  There were still lots of playmates and plenty of food.  One day, two nice ladies came and looked at us.  The younger one climbed right into our shed to get a good look at us.  After we'd all had a good long time to climb on her and lick her and generally look cute, she picked me up and took me out of that shed.  I was the one she'd picked!  I guess she though I was the cutest and smartest of the bunch.  And why not?  It's true!

Anyways, after stopping for a moment for goodbye to my mom, we got into a pickup truck and the young lady drove us away, while the older one held me on her lap.  I didn't much like that ride, but it wasn't too long.  It was during that ride that I got my name.  The two ladies debated it for a few minutes, but they finally agreed that I would be Max.  I was pretty happy with that decision.

When the ride was over, I met a dog.  His name is Bandit and he lives at the farm where I live now.  We've been buddies the whole time!  He teaches me lots of things, like how to chase pretty much everything and dig holes (which is the best game ever!) and sometimes how to obey the master and my mistress (which is not so fun).  My mistress is the young lady, Valerie, and the master is her father.  The other lady is her mother.  She doesn't have quite as much association with us dogs, but we sure do have to obey her!  She pretends not to like us very much, but I know she loves me way deep down.

I was having a great life until a couple of weeks ago.  Valerie and Master took me to a man named Vet. He made me stand on a cold metal table with no grip.  I almost fell off!  And then he checked me all over and gave a needle.  How awful can a guy be?  And Valerie says I have to go back!

Since then, life has been pretty spectacular!  Every night Valerie puts me to bed in my very own kennel and she feeds me and I always have plenty of water.  During the day I dig holes with Bandit, run as fast as I can, and sometimes do what Valerie tells me to.  My life was great until Friday night.  I'm really not sure what happened, but while I was waiting for Valerie to come put me to bed, I got really far from home.  I couldn't find my way back.  By Saturday afternoon I was at a place that looked a bit like a house, except no one lived there.  There were some big metal boxes a ways off from the building.  It was rainy and cold out, so I just hung around those boxes.  It was pretty dry under there, so at least I wasn't wet.  I sure was hungry, though.  It was getting to be night again.  I hadn't eaten all day, I was cold, and I missed home.  Then a truck drove up and stopped.  I got out from under the boxes to check it out because it reminded me of Master's truck.  All of a sudden, there was Valerie!  I was so happy!  My whole body was wiggling all on its own and I couldn't stop licking her face.  She picked me up and Master drove us right home.  When we got out of the truck, there was Bandit to say hello and then Valerie took me to her mom.  She seemed both sad and happy (let's call it sappy), as if she'd really, really missed me and couldn't quite belive I was home.  I told you she loved me.

After that, it's all a bit of a blur.  I just know there was a lot of food around and I got a little grumpy with Bandit when he got too close to the food.  I bet he'd been stuffing his face all day!  I hadn't eaten anything in 24 hours or so!  I'll apologise to him tomorrow, though, and then we can dig holes and be buddies again.  For now, I'm going to snuggle up in my nice warm dog house full of straw and have me a good long sleep so I can get up extra early and bark the humans awake like I always do.