Frankie!

This summer I had made a new friend--now he wasn't like a lot of my other friends, he was a four legged puppy named Frankie. He was about 3 or 4 months old when I met him. Such an energetic little puppy!

Frankie belongs to Gwenn, the wonderful woman who owns the cottage on Lake St. Catherine. You might remember the name or the cottage from an earlier post about the skunk (if not you need to go back and scroll down to that blog, worth the read!)!

I have been very lucky to spend some one-on-one time with Sir Franklin while his mommy has been out of town. The first time I watched him I didn't think it would be that difficult. I mean, come on, I have watched numersous puppies that my grandparents had while I was in high school & college and most recently Abbie (I am sure more on her later), so how difficult can it be?!?!?! The one difference between Frankie and the others...Frankie thinks he is the Alpha Male! For a tiny little thing he seems to think that he is 7 feet tall!

He seems to always be full of energy, but there are some moments where he is just calm and loves to snuggle. Even right now as I am typing this he is curled up under the blankets right againts my leg. Yes, I did say under the blanket--because he is a mini dachshund he likes to be warm so he burrows under the blankets and stays there for hours during the night.

While having Frankie these last few days I have never laughed so hard! Yesterday he decided to take my flip flops and carry them around my bedroom in his mouth. I wear a size 9 shoe, which is about the same length as him! Then there are the leaves on the ground--he decided that he was going to run through them! It looked like the Tasmanian Devil from the old Warner Brother cartoons--but instead a pile of dirt/dust it was a pile of foliage!



Now granted it hasn't been all easy--the shreading and eating of papertowels, him grabbing something and running under the bed where I can't reach him and the playing outside in other dogs poop...I have learned a lot!

1. My stomach isn't as strong as it once was--found out when I was pulling a poop covered leaf from his mouth!
2. That no matter how tiny one is--they don't make beds high enough like they use to!
3. A puppy as tiny as he is puts off so much body heat in the middle of the night! (A fan may be needed before he goes home)
4. Everything is play for him!

We have done road trip--his first experience at Home Depot was thanks to me. Granted, him and his blanket were placed inside my giant purple purse once I saw that pets we on the list of things not allowed inside the store. Poor Frankie didn't have a shirt on or shoes--he had 3 strikes against him! On the upside though, we ended last night with a playdate with his buddy Rudy! Rudy and his mommy joined Frankie and I for a walk at Cole Field. The amount of dogs there was incredible and he played so well with all! He did get a little scared so he was picked up and carried around like he was a baby until he was ready to get back in the fold of things. I should say that my favorite though was when he met the great dane! The dane had about 110 pounds on Frankie but was so cute trying to play with him. Kinda reminds me of that old Walt Disney movie The Ugly Dachshund.

Frankie has won over the hearts of many, but one is still not a fan! My Nana's dog Abbie!!! Abbie is use to be the one getting all of my attention so there is a little bit of jealousy on her part! A few weeks ago when I had Frankie for the first time he went to Nana's with me for Sunday lunch. Frankie and Abbie did play, but she made sure that he know who the boss was.