Peanut

She is so young that she is just beginning to toddle around. She comes from a dysfunctional family where the mother neglected her and her siblings. Not being housebroken, she pees and poops at will. She is so small that she can almost fit into the palm of my hand. And she has become the love of the household.

Peanut is a puppy, 5 weeks old and her owner is Sophia. Peanut is peanut-brown with white and black markings. Her tail is black with the tip white. Her legs and feet are stocking white with a white chest and ring around the neck. The ears are tipped black. Her button-black nose is wreathed in white. Her short, little legs seem barely able to support barrel like body.

Sophia got Peanut last Sunday (Nov. 4) from our secretary/bookkeeper Yeshi, whose dog seemed overwhelmed by the responsibilities of another litter. The girls were arriving home from a weekend of camping in tents by the shores of Lake Lagano and Yeshi was leaving for the U.S. in hours and would be gone until mid-December. It was now or never to pick up Peanut. So we went to Yeshi’s family home and Sophia took the one of 4 wriggling little bodies that she had already chosen in a previous visit.

Many of you know that Sophia has been wishing for a puppy for a long, long time, way back to St. Catharines. Wanda and I had told the girls that we would allow pets if we would go to Ethiopia with MCC. That seemed to make a big difference in our girls’ minds as to whether they would be agreeable to go with us to Addis Ababa. So we are on our way to having an animal farm. Besides the one ‘guard’ dog (Coca) and one turtle (now named “Yertle the Turtle”), we have added a bunny named Cinderella, a puppy named Peanut and in the future there will likely be another bunny and a kitten for Amani.

Oh, it was a happy night in the Amstutz household. The girls were excited and, of course, Sophia was all aglow. The little tyke really is a peanut in size, when she wags her tail her whole body shakes. Of course she shakes for just about anything; fear, joy, hunger, pain, cold, love . . . we could have called her Quaker . . .

We’ve had our ‘baby bouts’ with Peanut already this first week; yipping and crying from the kitchen throughout the first two nights, puddles of pee and poop on the floor (I know, I know; I have always said I wouldn’t allow a dog in the house, but this little thing can’t handle outside at night yet . . .), a bout of constipation which worried Wanda and I, and Peanut walking into a grassy area with army ants, which caused much yelping and howling in pain until we extracted every ant on her little body. What next?


So here’s a photo of wee little Peanut and some very big admirers (well, a whole household of charmed dog lovers).