Why your mother suddenly decided to get a guard dog is beyond you. Maybe she does have a softer side she needs to justify under a practical cause, but whatever it is, she's not told you about it.
In any case, you're pretty sure the family she bought the pup from was overstating a bit the natural capabilities of the breed for home protection. She puts you and your brother to the work of training the dog—you name him Little Lion for how you have to trim his shaggy fur in the rainy season—but he doesn't want to bite at sticks, no matter how menacingly the two of you shake them. In the end, your brother wanders off, and you play fetch with the stick instead.
It at least gives you an excuse to go out on your own, taking Little Lion with you on runs. He doesn't like being cooped up in the yard, you're pretty sure, and likes exploring down the canal beds and sniffing around the streets for evidence of interesting things gone by. One of the servants from a nearby household shows you how to teach him tricks—roll over, shake, play dead.
Your brother looks at you with a little disdain when you drop your leftover scraps surreptitiously under the table, but it's not *his* feet that Little Lion sleeps at, and thereafter your brother's pranks stop. Maybe there's more than one way of being a guard dog.
Notable:
Shrike is about 12 in this memory; her brother is about 10. Shrike is dark-haired and tan, still.
Her brother looks very similar to her, with shoulder-length dark mahogany-colored hair and tan skin, and he has a sort of bitterness about him already.
Shrike's mother is a tall, powerfully-built woman, perhaps a little on the older side for having two children of this age, and well-dressed. They seem well-to-do.
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softlyfalling) wrote2019-01-24 12:53 am
memory 009
In any case, you're pretty sure the family she bought the pup from was overstating a bit the natural capabilities of the breed for home protection. She puts you and your brother to the work of training the dog—you name him Little Lion for how you have to trim his shaggy fur in the rainy season—but he doesn't want to bite at sticks, no matter how menacingly the two of you shake them. In the end, your brother wanders off, and you play fetch with the stick instead.
It at least gives you an excuse to go out on your own, taking Little Lion with you on runs. He doesn't like being cooped up in the yard, you're pretty sure, and likes exploring down the canal beds and sniffing around the streets for evidence of interesting things gone by. One of the servants from a nearby household shows you how to teach him tricks—roll over, shake, play dead.
Your brother looks at you with a little disdain when you drop your leftover scraps surreptitiously under the table, but it's not *his* feet that Little Lion sleeps at, and thereafter your brother's pranks stop. Maybe there's more than one way of being a guard dog.
Notable: