Vivian is turning 1 year old!

Spring has sprung in the north woods and with it the discovery of  BIRDS!!  Yes Vivian is absolutely bonkers over birds!  The robins, seagulls and killdeer’s have taunted her continually for the past month.  I would love to know what is going through her head as she watches them.  This is a favorite perch of hers when watching the seagulls in the field behind our house.

It is hard to believe that Vivian will be one year old on Monday, May 21st.  I think about where I was a year ago, as I watched my beloved Anna decline in health.  In the weeks before she died I tried to convince myself that we would be a one dog family and that I could live without a poodle in my life.  We all know how long that lasted, now don’t we?  

People ask me all the time if Anna and Vivian are alike.  That is a tough question to answer because in many ways they are so alike.  Both standard poodles, both black, both beautiful, both so poodley (which my poodle friends will totally understand and most likely everyone else will say “Poodley?  Huh?”)  But how do I describe the differences? 

Anna, age 15

Anna, was elegance personified.  She pranced when she was on a lead, and was in her element walking through town…she liked to be noticed.  She also was quite verbal.  Probably because she lived with a single woman, and I needed her to be  my “problem solver” at the end of a long day.  We had some good talks, Anna and I, and she was always happy to give an opinion.   Anna did not suffer fools gladly and did not want to be seen as the fool.  Once she got a horrible hair cut and I swear she was embarrassed by it.   Where she usually came out of the groomer prancing and preening, that day she was glum and walked with her head down.  Anna was my heart dog; she gave me reason to quit working so much and start walking and smelling the roses; or in her case the occasional tree trunk and fire hydrant.  With Anna I learned to live happily in places I would have otherwise despised, and was brave enough to move to places that were  far out of my comfort zone.  We were a team of two.

Vivian on the other hand is a clown, an athlete and a lover.  As I wrote many months ago, she has some advantages that Anna did not;  she has Greg, she has Ike and she has acres on which to romp.  Viv can walk on a leash, but doesn’t love it, but give her something to jump over and she is in heaven.  She loves to chase the ball, leap into the air and catch it, thrilled with both the act itself and the applause it always elicits from Greg and me.  She is interested in everything, and fearful of very few things.  She thinks all ottomans were made for her to drape over, or as a stepping stool to the nearest lap.  Vivian is a lap dog when she isn’t being a whirling dervish.  Tails are to catch and someday she will catch hers.  Vivian loves me, but Vivian also loves Greg and Vivian adores Ike.  When Vivian isn’t with the one she loves, she loves the one she’s with.  When Anna wasn’t with the one she loved (me) she threw up. 

Talking to the Seagulls

So as we come up on Vivian’s first birthday, I am so happy that we have her. She didn’t replace Anna, but did fill a hole that Anna left.  A hole that couldn’t have been filled with anything other than a  poodle.  I can’t explain it, I think it might be genetic, I need a poodle in my life.