Life as I see it

I don't know how interesting it is, but this is life as I see it. Granted, my vision isn't perfect, but I see plenty.
My name is That Baby, and as you can see from my picture, I like candy corn. I'm a handsome young man, now. But really, I'm lucky to be alive at all.

The first time my Service Human (her name is Lynnette, but I know her as "mom") took me to the vet, a very nice man, I weighed 1.4 pounds, I was blind and I could only wobbly-walk a couple of steps before falling down.

Mom was worried, because at 5 weeks, my brothers and sisters already weighed 5-6 pounds and they could all walk and see just fine. My dog mother wasn't feeding me at all, even when I could find her, which wasn't often.

I was a happy baby, though, always wagging my tail, and whenever I heard a voice, I tried real hard to walk to it. I could get there, but I was so wobbly that I fell down - a lot. It took me a long time to get anywhere!

Well, mom and dad and a friend of theirs bottle-fed me canned mother's milk and mashed up puppy food mixed with mother's milk, and I began to get better. That was good, because I heard mom and dad say they didn't expect me to live.

Although I liked the food they gave me, I kept falling into the saucer and then I had to have a bath. Ugh. But I kept trying to walk and I kept wagging my tail. Mom said she admired my cheerful spirit and that's why she named me Tiny Tim.

I kept going to the vet, too, and started seeing Dr. Amy. She and the great people at the vet's office were real nice to me, holding me and loving me. Although I love mom and she's the one who named me Tiny Tim, I never liked that name. I knew I wouldn't be tiny forever.

This is me when I was still tiny. Mom had a hard time finding toys small enough for me! I was almost two months old. Mom carried me around in her purse. The blanket made it comfy, but sometimes I got scared.

That's the problem with pups like me. Dr. Amy says I will probably always have some neurological deficits. Mom says that means I'll be somewhat unsteady on my paws and always be afraid of the big, wide world. Dr. Amy says since my dog mom didn't take care of me properly, I don't know how to filter things and so I take in all the sights and sounds and smells simultaneously, and that overwhelms and frightens me. Boy, Dr. Amy is SMART!

Well, all that started a long time ago. I visited the doctor every 2-3 weeks until I was six months old. I gained weight, learned how to walk without falling (most of the time) and I can see, too. Not perfectly, but pretty good for a formerly blind baby! Dr. Amy checked me out real good and the ladies checked to see how much bigger I was since the last time I came in. I got lots of attention.

How I got my name

Once I could walk a little better and see, I wanted to play. I liked being on dad's chest so I could bite his mustache and chin. That made him laugh a lot, which made me happy. I found out that I could make mom look for me if I hid under the sofa, so I would get under there and peek out at her while she looked for me. "Where's that baby? I can't find that baby anywhere!" she would say, looking in the silliest places you can imagine - in the dresser drawer, in a soda can, even under the rug! I'd wait until she had her back to me and I'd pop out and make a little huffing noise. Boy, would she be surprised to see me!

She and dad always made sure I was taken care of. "Don't forget to feed that baby," they'd tell each other. "Did you give that baby his medicine?" "I'm taking that baby to the vet today."

I figured that was my name, and I didn't know this Tiny Tim fella I was named for, anyway, so mom and dad finally gave up and changed my records at the vet. When I got microchipped, I was registered as That Baby, and I have my own little tag that says my name, too. Once, my dad went to pick me up at the vet (I was supposed to be getting used to being there, but I wasn't) and told the new lady at the desk, "I'm here to pick up That Baby."
"Which baby?" she asked.
"That Baby," he said, and another lady laughed and told the new lady that was my name.

Well, it's late and I need to go to bed. I'm still a growing boy, you know. As you can tell, I haven't quite figured out how to make this blogging thing work right, but I'll learn.

More about my life later!