We have reached the gawky stage. The puppy breath is long gone, as is the tender face, the sweet, round body. Look at those legs. They look like a deer's. This is where, as I remember from Casey, we go from mid-growth to adulthood and I won't even notice.
He no longer wakes~bright eyed and bushy tailed. Now he's groggy. Stretching those limbs long after we've gotten outside. I miss the maddening fury of morning that I hated so much at the time. Now, even as he grows, his body needs time.
He has an endearing quality. He follows you and touches you softly with his muzzle. Your legs, sometimes your butt. I thought he was sniffing, at first. He's not. It must be a pack thing. I'm here with you. You're here with me. I hope it never changes. There's a gentleness to it that defies description.
Lessons are being learned. Intuition honed. Personality set into place. As we walk into the tennis court and Mark (another dog owner) screams his usual, 'MeanderMonster!', my brain ratchets through all the days we've done that and all of the inches added in the process.
I ache for him to grow into that constant age that Casey seemed to be in forever (the one that began when he went solidly into healthy adulthood and ended when we got the bad news), and yet I want the newness~his fascination with everything, even now, when now is what he saw and experienced yesterday.
I guess I've reached the gawky stage. When loving him goes from sheer adoration to finding love for all the new things he's becoming. Reaching yet to know what he will be.
.....................
No matter my angst. Life is always better when the Dog Nana's here.
