Åsa Wahlquist

Linus

They call me Linus. Or Liney. Or Li.
I live with Emmylou and Åsa. When I was a puppy I lived with my mummy, Coco, and Daddy, Ace, and all my brothers and sisters. I still see Ace down at the park. I get so excited when I see him!!!
I love Emmylou. She is so smart. And she is very fast. I love to chase her, but I hardly ever catch her.
My favourite thing to do at the park is to play with Emmylou. Or maybe it is playing with my ball. Actually, I think it is wading in the water. I really, really love wading through the water. I would rather wade through the water than walk on the path every time. Sometimes I have to swim but I don’t mind. I love the smells and the feeling of the water and the mud under my paws, and I don’t mind the oysters at all. Once I found some sausages floating in the water!! They were yum. I looked and looked but I have never found them again.
I like wading and swimming up the canal, too. And I love fishing. I’ve never caught a fish. Emmylou has caught two, but she wouldn’t give me a go of them, even though I asked and asked.
I also love eating. I really love eating. I have never found a food I didn’t like. I especially like finding food down at the park. Ace is really good finding food at the bins, but I’m not allowed off the lead as much as he is. I can open Grandma’s outdoor fridge. The first time I did that there were sausage rolls in there! A whole plate! Emmylou helped me eat them all up. It took two goes and then Åsa and Grandma pushed a big chair against the fridge door and even though I pushed and pawed and whined I couldn’t move it.
These are my friends: Pedro, Roly, Willow, Jeddah, Indie, Neva, Pepper, Holly and Casey.
I really like Kayla, but she is Emmylou’s BFF since Laylah moved away and she hardly ever plays with me. And I really love Penny. She visits every week and we play and play all day. Except when we fall asleep. Penny snores. Åsa sometimes calls her piglet.
Actually, Åsa calls me other things, too. Like dolt, and doofus and great galoot. I’m not sure what they mean, so I asked Emmylou. She said, what do you think? As I thought I felt all warm and smiley inside. So I said, I think those words mean Åsa loves me. Emmylou laughed and laughed, and I felt even warmer and smilier.
The end.

I’ve been too busy to write a blog because I’ve been raising Linus. Not that I was happy about this. After old Clancy died I was really lonely. When Åsa asked if I’d like us to get another dog I said yes. But I was thinking of having a friend like Basil or Kayla. I wasn’t prepared for Linus. When Åsa brought him home he was such a baby. Not to mention clueless: he didn’t even know to go outside to wee. When we went for walks she had to actually carry him. People kept stopping to ooh and aah and pat him. The first day it took ages to walk just 100 metres. It was disgusting the way people carried on about him: I had to press up against their legs just to get them to look at me.

I had to teach him how to play, games like tug-of-war and puppy wrestling. I always won.

When he was little he couldn’t actually run. He would sort of skip and then fall over. People actually laughed. It was so embarrassing. He fell into the creek and off the wharf and he always expected to be rescued. But he improved with age, and things really picked up when he learned to run. He has no idea just how fast he is. He just lopes along on his long legs, and if anything, like me, gets in his way he just sails over it. I am still the fastest dog in the park.

I taught him to fish, though his method is to pace backwards and forwards scaring them off while I’m a wait and watch sort of girl. And he’s not bad at stalking birds either, as long as he takes the lead from me.

But the best thing about Linus is I look really good in comparison. I mean, I don’t run off. Well, not any more. And I come when I am called. Mostly.

Linus loves to wade through water. He really loves wading down the creek as far as Annandale so far that Åsa and I wonder if he’ll ever come back.

When he was a puppy Linus’ most favourite activity was eating. It still is. His second most favourite was chewing things up. And he chewed up a real lot.

Here’s a list of what I can remember: one pair of RM Williams boots (old, pic available); one pair of glasses; one wooden handled vegetable brush (note from Åsa: there is not an unchewed wooden handle in the house); one pair of Sennheiser head phones; several paperbacks; the cover of several hardbacks including her dictionary which is now in pieces; the cover of her pranayama yoga notebook which was a special present from her niece Grace; the corner of the cedar chest of drawers; the arm rest of the Hans Wegner sofa; the legs of an Ikea stool (Åsa was really upset about the sofa but didn’t care about the stool. I will never understand humans); one sandal; her Bruno Magli shoes; several basket handles including one that Aileen gave her; her walking shoes and her diary. He also made some holes in her teddy bear (he got this down from the top of the wardrobe!) and he has ripped lots of holes in her Goretex jacket so now she gets wet when it rains (he has figured out how to open the wardrobe to get this). She has Linus teethmarks in her yoga mat, her yoga blocks, her wallet and her diary. And she can’t leave any food out, ever. Linus is so big he can even get things out of the sink. I wish I could, too.

I said to Linus ‘do you realise you have destroyed four pairs of shoes?’ Linus looked puzzled. ‘What’s four?’ He counts on his paws, but he always falls over when he gets to three. Did I mention he is really, really clumsy?

Emmylou