By Cyn Mobley

Pilot the bravo pup with Tweeter

Just on a morning I needed it, my darling twin Gwen retyped an old Pilot the Bravo Pup note and sent it to me.  This so reminded me of the goodness of this board and these people and to remember to count in my blessing the deep and abiding friendships I’ve found on this board (the Greyhound-L).

You folks who were around back then will remember what it was like. This was right before Ron’s surgery and that long path, just before that astounding HUGE box containing a ham, a turkey breast, side dishes, even dessert!!  arrived on my doorstep.  It was from my AOL Greyhound kin, who were reading between the lines, hearing more than I was even saying.

For those who weren’t there — short version — my then-husband had three back surgeries and I was essentially house-bound for a few months.  I won’t go into details, but it was a dark time.

It was also all of your reactions to these stories that led to the Greyhound Chronicles. Without your encouragement, those books would have never happened.

Thank you Gwen-of-the-twin-pack (who needs a puppy!)  For those of you who haven’t read the first Pilot note, scroll on down.

And always remember — it’s hard to tell how much time passes when you’re a Bravo Pup in a cat carrier. 🙂

Cyn

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Once upon a time there was a greypup named Pilot the Bravo Pup.  He was a red, a Cleopatra red, and he was the bravest, smartest, fastest, handsomest pup in his litter.  Litter, heck.  The whole KENNEL.  Maybe even the whole WORLD.  Because when you’re Pilot the Bravo Pup, there’s no pup in the world as smart and as fast and as brave.

Even if the Alpha pup sort of shoved you out of the way part of the time.  Maybe even bit you once, and she wasn’t even a RED, a Cleopatra Red, just a sneaky old brindle who was only bigger because she hogged all the milk.  But anyway.

There was a greypup named Pilot the Bravo pup, and he was the – wait, I said that already.

So one day. Pilot the Bravo pup went on a long trip.  It was scary because he was away from his litter and he didn’t know what to do being alone when all he had was an old brood bitch named Sapphire for company.

But Sapphire knew about pups, and knew about litters, and she told him that he was a strong, brave pup for going so far away all by himself.  He never told her that he didn’t have much choice about it, and she pretended it was all his idea, this awful thing that the skingrey kept calling a GUR, and it made it all better that Sapphire told him he was brave, even if he didn’t feel very brave.  And the skingrey have him a piece of fleece, blue fleece, with moons and stars on it, and she told him it was his and his alone.  That he didn’t have to share with anypup, not even the pushy Alpha pup, and that helped too.  It sorta made up for being in a cat carrier most of the way.

The GUR lasted for days and days, maybe a few months, maybe a year, because it’s hard to tell how much time passes when you’re a Bravo pup in a cat carrier.  It was a long time anyway.

And then a BIG skingrey pulled him out of the evil cat carrier and picked him up and cuddled him and said, “Why, you’re just a puppy, aren’t you?  Come on Bravo pup, let’s go home.”

And the BIG skingrey didn’t make the Bravo pup go back in the cat carrier, but let him sit on his lap all the way home, and this wasn’t so long a trip because the BIG skingrey patted him and admired the Bravo pup’s special blue fleece with the moon and stars and let him take all the time he wanted to go pee even if he did have to be on a leash.

After that, time seemed to stop.  Pilot the Bravo pup played with his new friends and splashed in his pool – his POOL!  What a GREYT idea pools are – and ran up and down hills, and learned that the scary little yippy dogs across the road and the yellow garbage cans and the big white horse and the can opener were not going to kill him even though they were very scary things.  And there were turkey necks and chicken quarters and biskies and peanut butter and toilet paper and shoes – okay, maybe not shoes – and walkies and RIDES and walkies and – did I mention the pool?  And it was a good time and Pilot the Bravo pup forgot about that scary GUR that lasted for two years – maybe three years.

Cyn
Dogbooks.org
Writers helping rescuers

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Originally posted Wed, 26 Jul 2000 02:19:02 EDT

A warning to all pups

Well. Pilot the Bravo pup, a young male pup who’s so smart he’s going to be tutored next month, is undergoing certain physiological changes. Some of them can be quite – uh – pronounced at time. And particularly startling to a young, impressionable pup.
So this evening, one of those aforesaid startling physical changes sort of occurred to an extent not previously observed by said pup. And it was apparently not quite understood by its owner, who turned, stared, barked and growled – and THEN BIT!!!

Immediate heartrending howls of pain. I have never seen a greyhound run bowlegged before, his back legs just about forty-five degree angles as he waddled back to his cage like he has a bad case of diaper rash or – uh – something.

The howling continued for two minutes, even though the – uh – certain physical change – had immediately – uh – resolved itself. (Come on, guys, quite wincing in sympathy! It was FUNNY!)  It’s a good thing there was no serious damage – I was laughing too hard to check him over immediately.

Poor Pilot. Let this be a lesson to all other pups. Don’t bite – – uh – well – your you-know-what. Now let’s see if this is retained in long term memory.

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Originally posted on Wed, 30 Aug 2000
Chat: A puppy’s learning curve

In Pilot the Bravo pup’s case, what you think he’d remember forever isn’t necessarily so. I am disheartened to report that there was another weenie biting episode this evening. Evidently the onslaught of hormones was so sudden, so unexpected, that Pilot Pup was simply startled by the sudden emergence of an unfamiliar appendage and reacted without engaging his still-smooth brain. One would think one would learn after the first episode.

Something must have occurred to him mid-chomp, something like, “Hey, didn’t I do this before and it hurt like holy Moses? Maybe I better – oops,” because this was simply a partial graze with the teeth instead of a full chomp. It warranted only a yelp and an extremely abashed look, the one he gets when alpha alpha is once again rolling on the floor laughing at him.

Honest, no, there is no medical problem, other than the vet getting the hiccups from laughing. It’s simply a rather flat learning curve about this particular body part. But really, one would think….