Teeny Dogs, Part 2

Cuervo is back, along with his new buddy Miss Parker. She is an unloved yapper, used to being scolded, tolerated and ignored. But when I stick my head out the front door and bellow in genuine fury, "Parker! Shut up!" she whips around, perks those extravagant ears, and comes flying, as if she's coming to someone that she knows loves her.

Five pounds at most, and this dog can fly! Faster than a greyhound, feet barely touching the ground, almost airborne. She can spin in wild circles and never lose her footing. If there were more field mice around here, she would make a great hunter.

She is so smart. She knows she's not allowed to come with the rest of the dogs to take care of the horses: she can't help barking under their feet; eating horse poop gives her catastrophic green diarrhea all night long. When the rest of us are getting ready to go, I just glance at the kennel and she walks into it quietly and without resentment, to be locked in until we return. Poor little mite.

Terrierman's reinterpretation of Faulkner is perfect for Parker:

"..[A]nd a little dog,

nameless and mongrel and many-fathered,

grown

yet weighing less than six pounds,

who couldn't be dangerous

because there was nothing anywhere much smaller,

not fierce

because that would have been called just noise,

not humble

because it was already too near the ground to genuflect,

and not proud

because it would not have been close enough

for anyone to discern what was casting that shadow,

and which didn't even know it was not going to heaven

since they had already decided it had no immortal soul,

so that all it could be was brave

even though they would probably call that too

just noise."