Tank's Introduction, Part 1

Hi, adoring fans everywhere! My turn to tell a little of my story. It all started in the belly of my beloved mother, Georgia. My canine paternal progenitor, Isaac, has already told you about her, so if you want to read the romance and see the honeymoon photos, go here. It's a sweet story and I'm a sweet boy! Soon after I came out my dad gave us all temporary names just to tell us apart. Mine was "Hook" Most of the rest of the pups had similarly dorky names. Thanks, dad. Mine was based on the white behind my head.

Above to the right you can see the white on the back of my neck. I guess I'm lucky he didn't call me 'coat hanger'. Then to the left, you can see all of us puppies nursing. This is the most orderly we ever were. Don't be fooled! We were a rollicking madhouse of puppy flesh jockeying for position. There are 6 puppies in this picture. Can you find us all? Princess is being coy waaay off to the left - left of Georgia's hind feet. I'm in the center - you can see my hook! That's 'cuz I was the coolest one. Still am! That yellow thing on the bottom right was Georgia's favorite toy before my dad gave her a Cuz. They called it her ice cream and even though she destroyed it she still carried it everywhere. Kind of what you might expect for a teenage mother. I was a bouncy, enthusiastic pup. I was the first-born, the biggest and the first to learn to walk. Only problem was I didn't know how to stop. So I'd walk up to my sib-pups to say hi! They were doing well just to stay standing. So I'd come up, not stop in time and knock them right over. Bowling for newf-pups! My dad knew it was a sign of things to come. Not wanting to call me 'bulldozer', for which I'm eternally grateful, he named me Tank. I was the second to get my final name. Later on he named one of my favorite sisters 'Shazaam', 'cause she learned to pounce first. She pounced on everything - leaves, us, you name it. We just went to visit her a few days ago. Her people call her 'Maggie', but I still think of her as Shazaam! That was a cool name, dad! I did one other great thing as a puppy. Feeling frisky, I climbed up my mom's back while she was laying on her side. When I got to the top of that huge mountain of Newf-flesh, I looked around from my high vantage and then slid down her belly like a big slide! Wheeeeeeeee! it was so fun I climbed up and did it again. Wheeeeeeee! Then one of the other pups saw me and they came over and did it, too. Then a few more came and then they all came. We had a line of pups waiting their turn to climb up then slide down mom. It was a riot! I tried it again 2 weeks later and it wasn't fun any more. I'd gotten so big that it wasn't even a climb any more to get up on mom, and when I tried to slide down my front paws were on the ground while my back paws were still on the other side of mom. Oh well. The rapidly fading joys of puppy-hood. I was also the last one to stop nursing. One day I tried to nurse and mom gave me a kick and a growl that scared me but good! I wasn't going to try that again!

Then came the worst day of my life. You'll hear that story in part deux...