Little Peanut and I

I was told I was fun and loving as a baby and smart when I started school. What I am not sure of, is whether having a dog before I could take care of myself was a good move.

I named him "Pequeno amendoim" Portuguese for tiny peanut an easy and interesting name for me at the time "kids right?" But, everyone else called him Peanut.

Me and my friends would go to the beach early in the morning every time we had a chance. We lived only a couple of minutes away from the beach so it wasn't hard to get there even for 7-9 year old kids. We weren't always rebels but hey, for someone who would sneak out early as 7AM to go sit at the beach for no reason at all this wasn't a promise we could keep. When I think about it there actually was a reason, we liked it and that was good enough for us.

Unlike any other morning at the beach this one was different ,we saw a dog hiding behind a recycle bin that was crying for help. We were like "why not?". I wonder how that sounded as a kid, and if we actually said something like that. All I know is that we didn't have to decide a thing, we knew what to do we ran for it... We took the dog off the streets.

The dog was hurt and probably couldn't move and if it could it simply chose not to. The dog was bleeding, it somehow had hurt one if its paws. Lucky for us we had a neighbor that was a vet one of our friends ran to the neighbor's house. The neighbor whose name I didn't know. The only adult that was aware of this at the time. We lied and said it was our dog.

Actually that it was mine. I can only assume that Robert found the neighbor because they both showed up minutes after. If someone knew anything about dogs it was her the stranger who lived close by. The lady, our neighbor brought her car and we took the little puppy to her place, she did some magic and although the dog still couldn't walk it appeared to be feeling better

Naturally I took it home as if the dog was mine since that's how it was suppose to look. Besides, it was actually our only card the reality was that my friend's parents wouldn't allow them to keep the dog in those situations. Mine wouldn't either but I decided to hide the dog from them. I was too calm of a child to get in any trouble so my parents didn't expect much of that from me. I confess to have used that to my advantage a couple of times, especially if a couple means any number above 6 and not precisely two.

NOTE: I won't be able to keep this in order I don't remember every specific detail but I'll share things how I remember them.

The dog started walking again which for me was like the first time because when we found it, it simply didn't. I managed to keep the dog for at least a week before my parents knew of its existence. I didn't lie about how I found it and when I shared this news with them I also confessed to keeping it for a week or more before telling them that I had a dog in the backyard.

I did this because it was hurt and I wouldn't be allowed to keep a dog that was in a bad shape, apart from the fact that it was probably someone else's puppy. This by the way is something that I don't know until this day, and I'm not sure whether my parents were aware of the dog in the backyard before my confession.

My parents let me keep the dog and that made my day, week, month and it eventually made my year. I took Peanut to the veterinarian every now and then, as I'm not sure how often one had to do so back then I cannot recall how often that was.

Peanut grew strong, healthy and very loud at night for reasons I know nothing about. In my head at the time dogs barked for no reason at all. Are we supposed to know this kind of stuff?

Sometime before the holidays probably two weeks before schools closed lil Peanut followed me to school. I was in a public school at the time and we lived in a not so privileged neighborhood. Our school wasn't protected by a fence or anything close, this made it easy for Peanut to follow me all the way to the school premises. For whatever reason I arrived late and ran straight to class.

I didn't sit very distant from the door and out of distraction me and Peanut's eyes met. I freaked out and pretended like he wasn't outside at all. He did this thing with his ears when I looked at him like he had antennas on and he was getting some signal, it was funny to watch. I tried to keep it together or I'd get in trouble and I wasn't looking for any of that, No Sir! I was a good kid remember? And, I steal am but maybe not so much of a kid now :)

Peanut was very smart for a small dog, he found a shade under a tree and stayed there until I was out. YES! "HE" Peanut. "It" sounds a bit unfair he was part of the family. We went home together. Me, Peanut and the two friends who helped me keep him. We all went to the same school and class. We were like the three masketeers very close and the best of friends. Robert, Mike and I.

On our way back:

"What is wrong with you?" I asked "You can't do this again you might get me in trouble OK?"

I'm not sure if I was expecting a yes from him... He's a dog after all. But then I remembered how long he stayed, waited for me and that made me smile. I had to congratulate him for that. I took out my water bottle and a plastic cup which was more of a mug (one I took to school for whatever reason) I poured Peanut some water gave him a pat on the back. "Good boy" I said. We waited for him to finish so we would continue our walk home.

My parents were not very fond of it but I would let him inside most of the time. He made himself at home right away the first time I found him on my bed 2 minutes after.

He tried following me for weeks after that but I would always take him back home every time he did and sometimes he was the reason why I got late to class. Peanut was persistent and energetic I could easily tell when something was off and this one time things didn't look so good.

Eventually all good things come to an end... Right?

I have so many memories with Peanut it almost feels like it lasted a decade but that isn't the case I kept him for nothing more than two years. It might be less but not more this is something I remember because three years after we found Peanut our family had to move. This also involved changing schools and by that time Peanut was no more.

Little Peanut would find a way to leave the yard at night but this didn't bother us much not after the first attempt which almost brought me down to tears but, he came back so I learned to trust him. I figured that maybe it was something he enjoyed doing since it happened often.

I can only assume that he got himself in a dog fight nothing else seemed to make sense to me. I lost Peanut the same way I found him. He managed to come back home but he came hurt, and we were all asleep there was nothing we could do about it. Losing Peanut made me sad I only went out to play with my friends weeks after he was gone.

Besides Loving Dogs I have to make it Up to Peanut

When I read what I wrote which was at least a dozen times I was surprised and if I wasn't me I'd consider myself crazy. But, I don't just want to have another dog I want one to make it up for Peanut as well. Not only treat the dog better but provide better conditions. I want to adopt a dog because I'm a big fan of dogs and I want to give the dog the best of me. I messed up in the past I wasn't ready but I wanted one so bad I couldn't help it.

The truth is, this is how I picture a perfect story at least for the conditions I had at the time but one thing here isn't true. We didn't have a veterinarian for a neighbor that person was never real, I made her up. We found Peanut hurt and we did everything ourselves. We believed the salty water would help and we used it to clean Peanut's paw along with other things we saw from a pet magazine we had.

Peanut would go outside at night this was true but he didn't get hurt in a fight he was probably ill. We did manage to convince a vet to come see us after a while but it only happened once or twice in all that time that I had Peanut. He was definitely strong but he wasn't healthy. Only I had time to take care of the dog but it wasn't easy after all I was a kid.

My parents were always out working. We couldn't afford much he would usually eat whatever we had. Dog food was like once in a couple of months. He was persistence, and I can only promise I'll do better next time.