I keep telling Savannah that Lady Bird Johnson dedicated her life to saving the wildflowers of this country, and particularly the great state of Texas, but Savannah just looks at me and bites the top off another bluebonnet.
When the bluebonnets first began to bud last week, Savannah would stop and sniff them, and her sniffing was so intense that I could actually see those little blue buds nearly being inhaled by her Great Pyrenees-style nose. But after that one monumental sniff, this puppy would just walk on... sniff the grass... inhale another bluebonnet... sniff more grass... repeat, repeat, repeat up and down the road.
After the drenching rains we've had this week, the bluebonnets have received ax extra burst of spring-time energy and their stalks have grown inches and their tiny blooms have exploded into the Texas-proud blue and white marvels of Mother Nature... and Savannah has taken notice. I've lost count of how many times I've said "Drop it Savannah!"... and then out pops the sheared-off head of another bluebonnet, courtesy of puppy-teeth that have grown into sharp incisors which spare no blooms, whether wild or not. I'm wondering if the inside of Savannah's mouth has turned blue but I'm afraid to look.
Thankfully, the rain has quit now and the sun came out this afternoon for the first time in days. I took Savannah on a long walk after lunch-time and she walked ever-so-slowly in the grass, sniffing and inhaling and munching like a cow. I could actually hear her tearing off stalks of grass and the bluebonnet blooms. I kept giving her leash a good pull when I saw her mouth aiming for one of those pretty bluebonnets, but she quickly got smart about that and turned her head towards the left as if she were looking out into the pasture, and next thing I heard was the crisp-crunch of another wildflower. And then she looked at me, mouth closed, with just about an inch of green stalk protruding from the front of her puppy lips. When I told her to "Drop it!" out popped another bluebonnet tip. I think it became a test of wills... how many flowers can I pull up before my Momma catches me?!
If a six-month old puppy goes through 'the terrible twos,' then this eleven-month-old puppy must be in the midst of 'the even-more-terrible teens.' Sometimes Savannah will plop herself down on the floor with the biggest sigh and the loudest explosion of puppy paws and fur. Just the way a teenage girl throws herself into a comfy chair with a phone in one hand and a can of cola in the other--- that's exactly the way Savannah will plop herself down on the floor or in her bed. And the sigh that escapes from her.... you would think this puppy had the hardest life in the world, one filled with disappointments and dilemmas. At times I'm tempted to go to her and make sure she's not hurt when I hear that big sigh of hers. But I don't, because I know it's all part of Savannah's puppy act. And where she learned all of that, I have no idea.
Although... as I type this, I'm sitting at the little table in the breakfast room. Our inside cat Sweet Pea is sleeping in the chair at the opposite end of the table. He is curled up into a tight circle and every once in a while, I hear an unmistakable and quite audible sigh... a contented sigh of cat happiness, not a disgruntled sigh of puppy angst... but a sigh nonetheless. Savannah and Sweet Pea have become best-buddies these past few months... curling up in the middle of the kitchen nose-to-nose, or paw-to-tail in the TV room. Heaven only knows what's being whispered between those two when I'm not listening.
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