FanStory.com - In the Meantimeby Liz O'Neill
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Lots was going on to plan for Zoe's future
Be Wee With Bea Part 3
: In the Meantime by Liz O'Neill

Background
This is the 3rd part of my autobiographical allegory and this features the most recent part of my life. Part 1 is about my early life with pets and Part 2 was when I met my partner Maureen, called Doo

Cast of characters

Bea –mom bear to puppies & Scruffles Part 1&2

Sweet Puppy– from Part 1&2 invited by Bea to live in cave

Scruffles–  from Part 1&2 invited by Bea to live in cave (RIP)

Doolie –mom bear to puppies from Part 2

Benny–miniature sheep dog  from Part 2  (RIP)

Annie–Brussels Griffon from Part 2 (RIP)

Maddie–3-legged Brussels Griffon from Part 2

Zoe– Tibetan Terrier from Part 2

Willow–counseling tree (metaphor for people who help children) Part 1&2

Previously: Because Zoe hurt Annie who had to go to the bridge of rainbows, she couldn’t live with Doolie anymore. Doolie & Willow were trying to plan her future. Bea had a solution.

*******

In the meantime, Bea is doing some serious exercises which were part of her Be Wee With Bea exercise regime, established many cold cave nights ago. The number one choice is, of course, doing her stepstooling of going up and down a step stool to get clay pots of honey.

She smiles when she recalls some comical incidences that occurred whenever she dropped any of her “be good to myself” treat while doing her fine motor weight lifting.  She was sometimes too enthusiastic about using her paw to lift gobs of honey from the pot to the mouth.

Not wanting to waste a drop of honey, this necessitated a new exercise called toe touching, which required her to bend over to earnestly clean her gooey toes. If she saw need to bend over further to the floor she was entering into the next phase known as floor touching.  

However, these were not the exercises Bea felt an urge to practice.  Doing her notice exercise, she recognized her plotting to figure out how to solve Zoe’s problem may actually work out.

Her usual exercise of scanning and planning was changing before her very eyes. Only once had she seen when help from her was actually requested. Usually, the outcome of a dilemma was basically none of her business.

This time, she was involving the maker of wayward misunderstood puppies in this project. Her brain exercise where she did serious thinking and meditation to calm her thoughts enabled her to do her talk to the maker.

Her next move was to locate Doolie to see how far she and Willow had gotten in finding a solution. Bea the genius wee bear had a solution and she knew it could work.

Her strolling picked up speed, thus she arrived at her desired destination in no time, a bit out of breath, but she was there. Doolie and Willow were in deep conversation. She hesitated to do her usual barging into a couple or even a group involved in discussion.

She stood silently awaiting the signal to proceed. What she overheard fit perfectly with her imagined plan. It was going to work out so there was a place for Zoe to live and neither she nor Sweet Puppy would have to be  sad. 

In the meantime, as Doolie and Willow spoke, Doolie remembered both she and Bea had a friend who Zoe always trusted more than anyone else. Everyone’s friend, Buddy bear had spent time helping troubled animals who had great anxiety as a result of the way their owners had treated them. 

Because a lot of the problems centered around food, with the vast experience Buddy bear had, she was the right one to have Zoe move in with. 

Buddy bear worked with new ideas for the best ways to feed stressed animals, who just didn’t seem to be able to find any appetite. Every time they were presented with food, all they could think of was a human yelling at them, throwing food at them, or ignoring them.    

That was Bea’s cue to add her ideas. She told them that Zoe could spend her time with Bea and Sweet Puppy. When the two went to spend time with Doolie and her family, Zoe could stay with Stormy and Buddy bear.

Of course, this all had to be cleared with Buddy bear and Stormy, but everyone liked the idea. It was so relieving for Doolie, who loved Zoe, but didn’t like her for what she did to Annie.

There was more discussion about precautions that needed to be taken. It seemed that Zoe reacted violently when she felt what we call insecure and jealous. Bea’s metaphor was that Zoe was like an older puppy who feels insignificant when a new puppy is born.

That older puppy watches the mom and sees only how the mom spends, of necessity, more time with the new pup. She does not see that the mom is so thankful that her big puppy can do so much for herself that it makes things easier for her mom.

When Zoe was around other puppies like Annie, she believed that Doolie loved Annie more than her. She might also be just aggressive with any other puppies so both Bea and Buddy bear would have to figure out a preventative exercise. Bea remembered the exercise she’d learned that alerted her to be on guard but calm.   

When presented with the idea, Buddy bear discussed it with her puppy Stormy, who had lived with her for many cold snows. Stormy didn’t seem to have a fighting bone in his body. They talked about how bad a life Zoe had had before Doolie discovered her. 

Zoe had told Doolie that the people she’d lived with did not understand that she was not, nor could ever be the dog they’d had before her. It seemed they were unable to let her be herself. That’s all she’d wanted, for them to see who she was, not who they wanted her to be. 


 

Author Notes
Much of the beginning of this book recalls all of the puppies (any dog, any age) my former partner, Maureen (stage name-Doolie) and I watched go to the Rainbow Bridge, Benny, Annie, and Zoe. I use advanced vocabulary. Who of us has not had to look up words we were unfamiliar with? This book is aimed at 4-6th grade for independent reading.

     

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