I finally figured out what made Bitsy special to me, more dear to my heart than any other creature I have ever known. Bitsy TALKED to me! Wait, before you send for the men in white coats with the overlarge butterfly nets, let me explain!

Bitsy couldn't "speak" a single word of English, but she had a language all her own, a language that I learned to interpret very early on! When she wanted attention, she would spread her front legs flat out, stick her little butt up into the air as far as she could, wiggling furiously, and "rrrrrrooooof!" . The longer you pretended to ignore her, the louder she got!

When she wanted up on the bed, that was the only time she would bark! When she wanted off the bed, she would give a very low growl. If the bedroom door was shut, she would growl at a slightly higher pitch!

When she was tired, she would lean up against me, and let out a slow moan, followed by a very pronounced sigh, as if to say, "Daddy, aren't we going to bed yet?".

When a "stranger" was at the door, she would "Yip, Yip, Yip!". Always three short yips. Let the "stranger" come in, and the yips would increase in volume, speed up in tempo, and rise in pitch directly proportional to the proximity of said stranger! Heaven forbid that a "stranger" should attempt to pick her up! I think that her yips registered on a scale that only other dogs could hear! And, by "stranger", she meant any living creature that was not a part of her family, which did not include nephews, beagles, cats, mailmen, and especially toads...she absolutely loathed anything amphibian!

I said that she didn't speak English. But, boy, I think she understood my language far more than my boys did! She would be sound asleep in my lap, and all I had to say was, "Bitsy, let me up". She would immediately jump up out of my lap. "Bitsy, are you ready to go to bed?" would be followed by a mad dash to the bedroom, where she would dance frantically at the side of the bed until I would pick her up and put her beside me. "Go find your baby" meant a frantic search for her at the time favorite stuffed toy. There are far too many other things that she understood and would act upon for me to list here, but there are a couple of things I must share. If she was sound asleep in my lap, as she so often was, my wife could call me from the other room, and Bitsy would immediately vacate my lap! She knew I had to go see what "The Boss" wanted. Also, if the phone rang while my wife was home, Bitsy would not even wake up or budge out of my lap, but if I was home by myself and the phone rang, she would get out of my lap quickly.

I don't have time to describe the "nonverbal" language that we shared, where I could lock eyes with hers, and sense what she was wanting, or trying to "tell" me!

Thank you so much for sharing this with us. It really made me smile. What a special little girl

Cheryl x