Ok, so there's a little tiny puppy coiled up asleep in our dining room.

We've got a new doglet. She is an eight week old, Jack Russell terrier, white, with a black and brown markings on the face like a little mask and she has actually melted my heart.

I am fairly apathetic towards animals: I like them in their habitats, I rather like seeing peculiar ones in zoos, I don't like bad zoos, I don't like deliberate mistreatment of animals, but I dislike mistreatment of humans much more. And I am definately not a vegetarian.

But this puppy is adorable. It has such tiny legs and such crinkly skin and such a tiny face.

And it's weird because it actually makes me miss Beanie, our lovely little terrier who was run over just before Christmas. Because although I was sad when Beanie died, I hadn't really missed her since she was just a dog (albiet a dog who ran like an idiot, picked fights with swans, fell in rivers and could dance to Dead or Alive: aka an amazing dog).
I'd be amazed if cutey-the-puppy can ever match Beans in temperment and dancing skills, but we'll see.

Now of course there's a war on in my house:
My brother is adament we name the dog Miley, which had been the name settled on before me and Sister A actually saw the puppy. Now my mother, Sister A, Sister B and I want to call the dog Dusty.

All my other suggestions (especially Bat Dog and Morrissey) were not taken entirely seriously. Dusty has generally been agreed on, but my brother hates it.

I wouldn't mind calling the dog Dolly, but mum thinks it would be embarrassing for my brother post-puberty to be calling 'Dolly' in the park.

Anyway, the dog has to be called Dusty, because it's already been established it likes the music of its namesake. And as Sister A pointed out, the doglet does not resemble a teen pop sensation. Whatever my brother might think.

My dad doesn't care what the dog is called. As far as he's concerned it's just a rat sized shoe eating machine that steals everyone's attention.
Anyway, he's in the garden dismantling the old climbing frame and swingset. When I came out to my mother, in the intervening year-long-hour or so of silence I listened to the Pixies in my room (Doolittle, because I couldn't find Bossanova and it was back in the day before I listened to music via computer) but when the nervous energy of what-have-done? became to intense I ran into the garden and went on the swing and suddenly was washed with freedom.

Anyway, it's all rusted and falling appart and I'm glad it's being taken down because its ugly and takes up all the garden and is vaguely sinister looking.

Until it's old enough to walk outside when I pick up the siblings from school I get to take the dog with me in a handbag!