Pippa and Pauly were looking for someone to play cards with them.
After looking around, they found Emil in the dining room, writing a letter. Emil looked up when the two smaller dolls climbed up into a chair close to him.
"We need one more person to play cards with us," Pippa told him. "Will you be through with your letter soon?"
"I'm just finishing," Emil told them. "I was just going to read it through to see if it sounds OK, and then I need to put it with the letters for The Writer to take to the mailbox. I'd be glad to play with you then."
"Why don't you read your letter to us," Pippa suggested. "If it isn't too personal, that is," she added.
"Are you writing to Holly?" Pauly asked. He knew Holly was Emil's friend.
He remembered that she uses a chair with wheels on it, called a wheelchair, to get around. It was hard to imagine a doll who couldn't run around on her own!
Emil nodded. "I wanted to update Holly on how the new puppy is doing," he told them.
"Well," Pippa urged him, "let's hear it!"
Emil began to read from his letter.
Dear Holly,
It was interesting to find out about the wheelchair basketball tournament. I'll bet it was fun! I'm glad Sam has made friends with someone from one of the other teams. New friends are good.
You will remember, in my last letter, I told you The Writer and her husband picked up a puppy during our trip with the trailer.
His name is Sandy. Well, Sandy has grown! I mean a lot! He went to get a haircut, and we found out that most of him was hair, but he's still bigger than he was.
Billy and I keep checking to see if we have grown, but our clothes always fit the same, and we're always the same height.
Puppies grow very fast, but this growing thing, you don't see it happening. I mean, you can't watch it. You just notice one day that someone is bigger. Maybe their clothes don't fit them anymore, or in the case of a puppy, the collar has to be made bigger, so it won't be too tight. You pull one part of it more through the buckle thing to make it bigger. The Writer does that every week.
Soon Sandy will need a whole new collar, because this one can't get any bigger.
It isn't just his neck, though. Sandy is getting taller, too. The Writer used to keep her outside shoes and the puppy's leash on the tray table in the family room by the back door. When we first came home from our trip, the puppy couldn't reach them. (He likes to investigate new things, which is pretty much everything.)
Then a few days ago, we noticed that the puppy had one of The Writer's outside shoes in his mouth and was running around with it. We tried to catch him, but if you run after him, he thinks you're playing a game. It's OK if it's a dog toy or a ball, but if it's something you don't want him to have, it's a problem. The Writer said to ignore the puppy, and he would drop it. He did. He brought it back into the house and dropped it on the floor. He was trying to tease her into chasing him. The Writer ignored it until the puppy started to play with something else. Then she picked it up and put it up higher.
The Writer's husband cleared a shelf in the bookcase that was high enough that Sandy couldn't reach it. Now she keeps the leash, her outdoor shoes, Sandy's leash and a jar of treats on the shelf. She also now has a hook next to the door for her jacket, because Sandy was taking the jacket off the chair and dragging it around.
We had to move the tray table, because Sandy can stand up on his hind legs, like a person or a doll, when he wants something. (I don't know why the stool was there, too!)
When we look at the photos Billy took of the two dogs together when we first got home, Sandy was a lot smaller than Dusty, and more of him was hair. He also wouldn't stay still to have his picture taken. This was the best Billy could do. The puppy is a little blurry, because he was moving.
Now when we see them together, Sandy is still smaller than Dusty, but there is less difference than there was. He almost understands "stay," now, so he isn't as blurry in the picture.
As you know, I can hear the animals when they talk. Listening to Sandy is very interesting. He knows I can hear him, so he comes and tells me things.
Sandy wonders why everything he finds on the sidewalk or next to it when they go for walks is called a "leave-it," but the same kind of thing he finds in the backyard is called a "pine cone."
Or another kind of leave-it is called a "stick" if it's in our backyard.
He thinks things should have the same name when he finds them on walks. He finds that confusing.
I told him "leave it" means "leave it alone," or "don't touch it." He said he would try.
When we first came home with Sandy, he had to sleep in a green box called a crate. It was big enough for him to stand up in and turn around if he wanted to.
Sandy grew to be too big for the crate. He can't stand up and turn around if he needs to. It has become too small. Now he has to sleep in a bigger crate at night. The new crate is brown. He likes sleeping in a crate. He knows he's safe there.
When he is awake, Sandy stays in a big cage called a playpen if our humans are too busy to play with him or to watch him.
I remember you said that Sam had to get new clothes because she "grew out of" her old ones. I remember you said Sam's wheelchair could be adjusted so it could be made bigger as she grows. We have never watched someone grow before. The Writer and her husband don't grow. If they need new clothes, it's because their clothes wear out. It will be interesting to see how big Sandy is when he stops growing. I wonder if he will be the same size as Dusty then. Dusty has been the same size as long as I have lived here.
Sandy used to want to chew my fingers, but I told him "Ow!" and he stopped. His teeth are very sharp. The Writer says it's because they are tiny for a puppy mouth, which starts out small.
They will start falling out soon and his new teeth will be much bigger, like Dusty's.
I think Sandy isn't just getting bigger; he's also beginning to act like an older dog. He's starting to learn which things he can play with or chew on and which things are not for him. If he gets something that doesn't belong to the dogs, our human family members take it away and give him something that does. They say, "not yours," when they take it away, and then give him something he can have. I'm glad all of us dolls are "not yours." I don't think we want to be chewed on.
Sometimes he still forgets, though. He likes things our human people have used. He ran off with the script for this story. The Writer had printed it off and given it to Billy, so he could take the photos. Billy forgot and left it on the edge of the table. When the puppy brought it back into the house, it looked like this.
It was OK, though. Billy only had two more photos to take, and he remembered what they were.
It’s almost time for summer vacation. When do you get out of school? Do you have any special vacation plans this year? I'm not sure what we're doing yet, but I hope to spend some time in the garden. It's fun to plant seeds and watch them growing up into vegetables for our human family.
I hope you and Sam have a great summer. Please write when you can. I enjoy reading your letters.
Your friend, Emil
"That's an interesting letter," Pippa told Emil when he was done reading.
"I'm glad you think so," Emil replied. "Let me put it into the envelope, and then we can play cards."
After Emil put his letter into an envelope and addressed it, he left it with mail that needed to go to the mailbox, which was way up high on a shelf by the door, where Sandy couldn't reach...ever! Then the dolls played cards at the dining room table.
When they were through playing, they put the cards away in the card box.
Then they put the box of cards away in the drawer, so the puppy wouldn't find it and chew it up. They didn't want Sandy to chew something that could make him sick, and they wanted to use the cards again.
Pippa and Pauly heard a sound like "thwap!" The dogs were coming in from the backyard through the dog door. They quickly decided to look for a higher place to sit.
Billy: Götz Happy Kidz Lily at London
Emil: Götz Happy Kidz Emilia
"The Doll's Storybook" is not affiliated with Gotz Dolls USA Inc. or Götz Puppenmanufaktur International GmbH.
Watch for the next story each Friday afternoon at 1:00 PM Pacific Time.
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