The Secret Puppy

Chapter Two

“Someone has brought a dog; I’m sure I heard it barking as we walked across the yard!” Daisy pulled at her dad’s sleeve. “Well, just little dog noises, really – more like whining than barking.”

The teenage girl scooping out the ice creams smiled at her. “That’s the puppies you can hear. They’re in the stable on the other side of the yard.”

“Puppies?” Daisy asked hopefully.

“Uh-huh. German shepherds. My mum breeds them – we’ve got so much space with all the old farm buildings, the dogs have their own special room. It’s the one with the sign over the door that says Riverside German Shepherds.”

“Are we allowed to see them?” Daisy said. She loved German shepherds, they were so noble-looking.

“Maybe – you’ll have to ask my mum, Julie. You’ll have met her in reception, I bet.”

Daisy nodded. The lady who’d given them the map and told them where their tent was – she’d definitely been called Julie. And she did look quite like Amy, the girl in the café, with dark, curly hair. “I’ll ask,” she told Amy. “Thanks!” Daisy wasn’t usually all that good at asking for things – she was too shy. But for the chance to meet some puppies, she could be brave enough to talk to someone she didn’t know.

Once she’d eaten her ice cream, Daisy persuaded Mum to return to reception with her, while Dad and Oliver went to look at the climbing wall.

“Hello! Is everything all right? Do you like your tent?” Julie asked them, smiling.

Mum nodded. “It’s lovely. Much bigger than we’d expected.” She gave Daisy an encouraging look.

“Would it be OK…” Daisy gabbled. “I mean – please could I see the puppies? Amy said there were puppies.”

Julie laughed. “There are. Six of them, they’re ten weeks old now. Do you like dogs?”

“Yes. I’d love to have my own dog. Do you have lots?”

“Usually only Lucy, she’s the puppies’ mum, and Sally, that’s her sister. We don’t breed very many puppies – just two litters a year. And then we either sell them to be pets, or sometimes they go to be working dogs. Quite a lot of our puppies are police dogs now.”

Daisy nodded. She knew that German shepherds made good police dogs because they could be trained so well. They were used as sniffer dogs, and search and rescue dogs, too.

“Don’t they get a bit too big to be pets?” Daisy’s mum asked doubtfully.

Julie shook her head, laughing. “No! Well, they are big, I suppose. We have Lucy and Sally in the house with us, when they aren’t having pups and living in the puppy room, and they do take up a lot of the kitchen in their baskets. But to be honest, it’s all down to how well-behaved a dog is. If you train a big dog properly, it takes up less room than a small dog!”

It sounded silly, but Daisy knew what Julie meant. Her friend Millie had a miniature dachshund, who was gorgeous but also totally spoilt. Millie’s whole family ran around after her. She definitely took up a lot of room…

“I was actually going over to check on the pups in a minute anyway,” Julie said, glancing at her watch. “You can come with me if you like?”

“Yes, please!” Daisy said eagerly. “Do they need feeding? Puppies need lots of meals, don’t they?”

Julie looked at her in surprise. “I didn’t think you had a dog?”

Daisy smiled shyly. “Oh, I don’t. But I love reading about them. I got a brilliant book all about dogs for Christmas. I’ve read it four times, and it says lots of stuff about puppies. Are your puppies nearly ready to go to new homes, if they’re ten weeks old?”

“Yes, their new owners are coming to visit this week and next.” Julie came out from behind the reception desk, and led Daisy and her mum back up the path towards the main yard. “We’ve been lucky, we’ve got a name for ourselves for breeding good-natured dogs. There was a feature in the local paper about training police dogs, which had a gorgeous photo of two of our puppies with their police handlers. After that, lots of people wanted a Riverside puppy. All the puppies in this litter will go to people on the waiting list.”

“Oh…” Daisy gave a tiny sigh. She had been daydreaming that Mum would fall in love with one of the German shepherd puppies, and she’d finally be able to persuade her to get a dog. She was pretty sure Dad was already coming round to the idea. He had admitted he quite fancied the early morning walks to get some fresh air before he started work. He and mum worked together from home, designing websites, and he spent most of his time stuck in front of the computer. Daisy sighed again. There was no point even thinking about it. A dog would be the best thing to take home from a holiday ever, but if the puppies were all reserved, it was no use.

They’d reached the main yard now, and Julie opened the door to the puppy room. “We converted it specially, you see, so that they’ve got an outdoor run as well. Now it’s so hot we’ve been able to leave the door to the run open all the time, so they can get some fresh air. And we take them out into our garden too.”

Just inside the room was a wire pen with a gate in it, and stretched out on a fleecy blanket was a beautiful German shepherd. She looked exactly like the photos from Daisy’s book, with golden brown legs and ears, and a black face and back. She had huge dark eyes, and she was staring thoughtfully at Daisy. She didn’t look fierce – just watchful.

And Daisy could understand why. Tumbling around her were four beautiful puppies, and she was making sure that Daisy and her mum were safe to be around them. The puppies, however, weren’t worried at all. They bounced over to the edge of the pen and scrabbled excitedly at the wire. If they stood on their hind paws, they could almost put their noses over the top. Two more puppies dashed in from the outside run and flung themselves at the wire too, yapping excitedly.

Daisy’s mum laughed. “Oh my goodness. I can see why you have them out here rather than in the house…”

“We do bring them into the house too, to get them used to being around people and to being careful with the furniture,” Julie explained. “But not usually all at once. It’s a big old farmhouse, but eight German shepherds are a bit much for any home.”

“They’re gorgeous,” Daisy breathed. She’d been expecting the puppies to be cute, and they were, but it still wasn’t quite the right word for them. Although they were really soft and fluffy, they didn’t have round little puppy faces. They already had lovely long German shepherd muzzles, and upstanding ears. They weren’t just cute – they were handsome.

Then one of the puppies put his head on one side, and gazed at Daisy. His ears twitched and wriggled. Daisy laughed, and crouched down to get a better look.

“Oh, he’s got a flop-over ear,” she said, wishing she could stroke it. The puppy was the darkest of the litter, with lovely browny-gold fur, and black markings on his face, like a sort of curly T-shape that went over his eyes and down his nose.

Julie crouched down next to her. “Lovely, isn’t he? Their ears start to straighten up around now; he’s just taking a bit longer than the others. Sometimes they’re about five months old before their ears stand up properly.”

The puppy seemed to know that they were talking about him. His brothers and sisters had lost interest in Daisy, and gone off to chase each other around the pen and tussle with the toys that were scattered about. But he stayed by the wire, watching her intently with his dark, intelligent eyes.

“What’s his name?” she asked Julie.

“Well, we try not to name them, even though it’s difficult sometimes. It’s nice if their new owners can choose their own names,” Julie explained.

“He looks really clever,” Daisy said.

“He is sweet,” Mum agreed.

Daisy looked up at her eagerly, and Mum shook her head. “Don’t get too excited! We couldn’t have a big dog like that.”

“But – we might be able to get a dog? Another kind of dog?” Daisy whispered.

“We’re thinking about it,” her mum admitted. “Dad would really like a dog, and I had a dog when I was your age. She was called Cola, because she was exactly cola-coloured. You and Oliver are old enough to be sensible with a dog now. So maybe we can have a think about it when we get home…”

“Oh, Mum!” Daisy flung her arms round her mum’s neck.

The puppy by the wire looked up at them, wondering what was going on. His floppy ear straightened up for a second, and then flopped over again. The girl looked down at him, and he licked her hand through the wire and made her laugh. He liked her.

Daisy crouched down by the wire again. “I might be able to have a puppy like you,” she whispered.

“You can stroke him, if you’re gentle,” Julie told her, and Daisy slowly stretched out her fingers, so as not to scare the puppy, and rubbed his golden fur. She sighed contentedly.

Julie was smiling. “If you want, Daisy, you might be able to help me with socializing the puppies – getting them used to different people before they go to their new homes.”

“Can I, Mum?” Daisy asked hopefully. She had two weeks at Riverside Farm. It was the perfect opportunity to show Mum and Dad what a fantastic dog-owner she would be. She was scratching the puppy behind his velvety ears now, and he was leaning blissfully against the side of the pen.

Mum nodded. “Just don’t get too used to German shepherds, Daisy! I know they’re gorgeous, but if we do get a dog, it’ll definitely be something smaller.”