Peaches

We had two precious Poodles (lap dogs) in our married life. One with a fancy French name of “Arpege” and one with a swanky South Georgia name of “Peaches.” Both were near and dear to our hearts. Arpege was a tiny little silver and black Poodle munchkin who met her maker way too soon when I accidently ran over her one afternoon in our driveway when she was about four years old. I’ll confess this up front and will tell you I have relived every minute of that accident many times over, but I’ve forgiven myself because I know it was a true accident and something good would come out of it.

Our #2 son had the cutest tiny teacup champagne colored Poodle, Bambi, that they bred. She had two puppies and he asked if we would like one, knowing we had lost Arpege not too long before. We gladly accepted his offer and he and his wife brought her to us in Virginia when she was three months old. From the very beginning, this little doll was almost the most important thing in our lives. She was easy to train, very obedient and more than anything, very loving to both of us. She was the talk of the town in our friendship circle and everywhere we went, Peaches went, with the exception of a few cruises.

When we moved back to Georgia, Peaches didn’t skip a beat getting used to her new home and yard. She patrolled from the front glass storm door when anything or anyone dared to come in “her” yard. She wasn’t particularly fond of strangers but would climb up in our lap where she felt cozy and would go to sleep knowing that we were safe. She did, however, nip at a couple of strange feet in our house a few times. She definitely wasn’t fond of children and a noisy atmosphere. She knew exactly when to go to the door to watch for Sol and when he drove into the driveway, she hauled off to the back of the house where we had a large window seat in our bedroom that offered her several windows to see every few seconds of Daddy in the truck before she jumped down and ran to the back door. This was a daily ritual. Front door to window seat to back door and then round and around circles and so excited to be picked up for licks and kisses. She would hold on to us like a baby with her arms around our necks.

Animals are very tuned in to your DNA. They will smell you out, no matter where you are, and Peaches was no exception. She smelled the Kleenex, paper napkins, underwear, dirty clothes, bathroom trash cans, garbage, and anything else that had even the tiniest bit of our DNA. That part of her wasn’t cute. However, she was always very repentant afterwards. But she would sit with us or stay in bed with us till the cows came home, and never get up until we did.

Sol was always a “napper” and would nap in his chair, on the floor, or in his car if offered the opportunity. His favorite was his recliner. He would usually take out his partial plate of teeth and put them on the table beside him and “sack out.”

One day he was napping in his usual spot, teeth in place on the table, and he was totally out of it. Peaches was with him, as usual. When he woke up, first thing to do is put the teeth in and then go about your business. He reached over to get them, and they weren’t there. He got up and looked all around thinking they must have been knocked off the table somehow. Nope, he couldn’t find them around the chair. We got out an all-out search party looking for those teeth. I went to look in the foyer, and lo and behold, there were these mutilated pink partial teeth on the floor in front of the storm door. There was no doubt who the villain was as Peaches kind of cowered over to the side watching with her head hung low! Oh Lawd!

I couldn’t be mad ‘cause I was laughing so hard, but Sol wasn’t laughing as there lay his front teeth on the floor all mangled and broken. Dr. Brown and everybody in the dental office got a large laugh out of that as Sol tried to explain to them what had happened and that he needed some new front and upper teeth, pronto! I can almost guarantee that he never left his teeth laying around to antagonize that sweet baby again.