Exercise #4-1

The speaker shares a story about a time when they were left alone to take care of two small puppies. They usually keep the puppies in a playpen, but one of them managed to escape into their parents' bedroom and hide under the bed. The speaker became stressed trying to get the puppy out without causing any damage. After some time, they were finally able to retrieve the puppy and put it back in the playpen. The speaker reflects on the experience and acknowledges the challenges of raising puppies. This is how a small puppy managed to stress out part of my day. I'll start the story with some context. My father, during spring break, he decided to go to Mississippi to visit his brother and he spent about a week over there. And then when he came back, he brought two adorable, small, American Bully lab-mixed puppies. Both of them are, at the time, were about a couple weeks old. And so we keep them most of the time in a large playpen so that way they can move around while also still being in a small, confined space so they don't run around because they're not pietrained yet. And we take them outside so they can do their business, bring them back inside, and put them back in the playpen. But this one day, I was on my own looking after them. And so, after making sure they did all their business outside, I tried to wrangle them both back inside. I was able to pick up one of them and place her in the playpen and then I locked the door. What I didn't know was that the second one walked past me and then I realized a mistake I made. I didn't close the door to my parents' bedroom because this one puppy, her name is Lulu, she likes to go in there. And I saw her walk in there and I quickly get in there because I thought she was going to, you know, I thought she was going to pee in there. But then I saw her walk underneath the bed. And I'm like, okay, I need to get her out of there. And I tried laying my head down and I see she's about in the middle, underneath the bed. And I try to reach for her but she moves away and I try to lure her over to where I am using toys. But she was more interested in trying to chew on a sock or a shoe. And it really started to stress me out because I didn't want her to tear anything up. And also, I didn't want her to make a mess underneath the bed. And this continued for, I guess, a minute or two. But it felt like a long time to me. And so, I had to wait until she grew bored or uninterested. And she started to move towards the other side of the bed. And I thought, okay, this is my chance. So, I quickly get up off my knees and race to the other side of the bed. And as soon as she poked her head out, I leaned down and snatched her up and I put her back in the playpen. And also, I gave them water and toys. So, that way they have stuff to do and stuff to drink. But during this whole adventure, it was very stressful to me. Trying to wrangle a small little puppy. Then I realized how stressful it can be trying to take care of and trying to raise a puppy. But yeah, this was definitely an interesting experience. I'm sure I'm going to experience more of as I go forward along with me and my family raising these two puppies. Thank you for listening.