Those Puppies Are Crazy!

Enrico set up a fire pit as the sun slowly put her head down over the foothills of the Italian Alps. In midsummer, the evenings stay warm enough to just sit out all night. The nearest neighbour is over a hill a half mile away. Or 0.8Km away. We are in Italy, after all.

The only sound is the gentle breeze carrying the howl of some distant wolf in the mountains. I walk over to Enrico and notice that there are only a few logs for the fire. Barely an hour’s worth before we need more. That’s lazy. The chopped wood is barely a few steps away in the garage. Lazy.

“Enrico, that’s not enough wood. You know that. Why didn’t you grab more?”

He gives me such a look as to send a fright through my bones. This is not like him at all. He's such a gentle soul.

“Those puppies are crazy. They’re insane. I am not going in there again. You want wood? You get wood. I’m not doing that again. No way. They’re nuts!”

He was pointing to the other side of the garage door, where lives 12 of the cutest puppies you have ever known. They're barely 8 weeks old and at that age where they just want to play and be fluffy and funny and just adorable.

To see that crazy, angry look in Enrico's eyes, was weird. This is the same guy I've seen take them in his arms and kiss and cuddle them. The guy's completely allergic to them. And still he hugs. So it was weird he was being so off-ish about them.

I mean for me, to sit out under the stars with a gentle fire going is nothing short of bliss. And to have to navigate a carpet of puppies to refuel the fire is, well, just the icing on the cake. So, quite happily, I volunteer to get more wood.

I pull open the huge iron door and close it shut behind me. The door is thick enough to keep the sound locked in. There is a knee-high fence just inside the garage which keeps the puppies from going any further. I look in. It's complete chaos.

This small, windowless room is covered in a thin layer of hay and straw and a much thicker layer of puppy. Grey puppies and white puppies and polka dot puppies and noise. Oh, the noise. 12 high-energy bundles of fur running in all directions, jumping over and into each other, on a discordant repeat of excited “Woof! Woof!!”

The chaos is side-splittingly hilarious. I can't stop laughing.

But I'm on a mission. Firewood. Got to get more firewood. On the other side of this abyss is another door that leads to another garage. That is where the firewood hides. I need toget there and back with wood.

That’s it. One step at a time. I take one leg and step over the knee-high fence. Instantly five puppies go straight for my shoelaces and shorts. They’re trying to play and bite but it’s like five puppies kissing your ankles. It tickles! I take the other leg over and the other seven go straight for it, one tripping over the other whilst tripping another intentionally.

Tears are rolling down my cheeks from the laughter. My sides hurt. But I'm on a mission. Firewood.

Moving one step at a time and being so ever careful not to squish this or that puppy under my foot, I finally make it to the other side of the garage. How do I open the door and not let the puppies through?

The short answer is I don’t. With this bedlam of puppied excitement, three get by me as I am trying to open the door and get through whilst holding unrelenting fur at bay. It’s fine. I can deal with three.

I let them follow me, all the while the deafening chorus of “Woof! Woof!!” piercing the inner recesses of my mind to the point where all I have ever known in all my infinite lives is “Woof! Woof!!”.

But, somehow, the mission remains. I grab half a dozen logs, scoop up the three puppies and force my way back through the abyss with a bundle of firewood and puppy. I put both down and close the first door behind me.

It's been almost 20 minutes since I stepped in. I retrace my few steps, careful not to squish this or that little devil. Still the ringing of “Woof! Woof!!” all around. I can’t think. I need to get out! I make it over the knee-high fence, push open the big steel door and bolt it shut behind me.

Silence. Not even the wolf’s howl. I see Enrico sitting by the fire lost in the flames. He looks round at me.

I must have had a strange look on my face because he turns to me and says “You see? Those puppies are crazy.”

I take a deep breath. And I realise my hands are empty. I put the wood down in the abyss when I put the three puppies down. The wood only made it half way and it is still with the puppies.

There is absolutely no way I am going back in there. I have no idea where up is any more. Those puppies are crazy. They are actually crazy.

Davide came walking over to join us for the fire. “Guys that wood won’t last an hour, why don’t you get more?”. I look at him with my wild eyes, still utterly bewildered from the carnage on the other side of that garage door.

“Davide if you want more wood, you get more wood. I am not going in there. Those puppies are fucking crazy!”