The puppy that squeaked like a mouse.

[This is a therapeutic story I wrote during my first year of training to become a play therapist. I am posting it as yesterday (almost twelve years later), I had a lightbulb moment regarding the telling of this story. That post will follow this one.]

Once upon a time there was a little pink puppy. Most of the time, she was a happy puppy and liked having fun especially when she was with her favourite friends and family. But sometimes she got upset and worried. It always happened when she went to a new place with lots of strangers. Then something awful would happen….she would squeak like a mouse!

Now every-one knows that puppies bark they don’t squeak. Only mice squeak! Every-one would look at her and think why is that puppy squeaking? That is a very strange noise for a puppy to make. Maybe that puppy ate a mouse and that’s why she’s squeaking.

Puppy would be so upset when this happened she would try to keep her mouth shut and not make any noise so people wouldn’t look at her.

One day she was playing with her best friend Giraffe in the park when a lot of other animals came to play too. Giraffe didn’t mind the others playing there but Puppy got a bit shy because she didn’t know them. There was a terrible noise. The chatterbox Duck had two very noisy hammers and was running around bopping every-one on the head.

Puppy didn’t like all the noise. She was getting more and more scared. She looked around and couldn’t see Giraffe anywhere. Oh no, now she was all alone with noisy Duck and his friends. She didn’t know what to do. They started talking to her and asking her questions and all she could do was squeak! She felt so embarrassed because they all laughed at her squeaking. They asked Puppy “are you really a mouse?” and all laughed at her. Puppy squeaked “no I am a dog”. But they just laughed even louder as she squeaked more and more. She did not know what to do. She wished that Giraffe was there to help her and even more than that she really wished that she didn’t squeak. She wanted to be a proper dog not a puppy that every-one made fun of.

Oh dear, what could she do? She went home feeling very sad and miserable.

The next day she was still upset so she went to visit her friend Eeyore. He was in a very happy mood. Puppy thought Eeyore looked sad but he was actually happy. She thought “that is different to me. I feel sad inside but I don’t look sad so no-one knows how I really feel.” They went to the park and every-one said “What is the matter Eeyore why do you look so sad?” He said “I can’t help looking sad that is the way I am made. I am happy I promise you.” They were so surprised. Then they asked Puppy “how are you today?” Puppy said “I feel very sad” and she told her friends what had happened the day before.

Her friends felt sorry for her and asked her if they could help her. Puppy said “no thank you. I think I have to sort this out myself. No-one else can help me bark. I am the one that squeaks so I have to find a way to bark instead of squeak.”

Puppy went searching for her bark. She met lots of strangers along the way and every time she squeaked. Some laughed at her but others tried to help her. One day she found a big brown egg. She didn’t know what was inside it. It started to crack open and she got very scared so she hid away behind a tree. She peeked around the tree to see what was happening. The egg cracked open even more and out popped a baby dragon. He was shaking and crying because he was all alone.

Puppy felt sorry for him so she slowly moved towards Baby Dragon and smiled at him. He was scared of this pink puppy coming towards him so he cried even louder. Puppy wanted to tell him not to be frightened of her but when she opened her mouth, out came a squeak. Dragon looked at her. She squeaked again. So he stopped crying and whimpered instead. She tried again as she moved towards him. She squeaked again.

She wished she could bark but Baby Dragon didn’t seem to mind. Then she realized he didn’t know what noise she should make because he had just come out of his egg. So she must be the first dog he had ever seen.

That made her feel very special because he accepted her as she was, it did not matter that she squeaked. She took him home because she didn’t want to leave him all alone in the forest. On the way back, they kept bumping into strangers. Puppy asked them squeakily if they knew where Baby Dragon’s family were. Nobody laughed at her they all tried to be helpful.

Eventually she found her friend Eeyore and he said he saw the Dragon Mummy in the park. So Puppy took Baby Dragon to the park to find his Mummy. She saw them and rushed over to them. She was so pleased and surprised to see her baby. She thought he was safe in his egg. She said to Puppy “Thank you very much for looking after my baby. You are very kind.” Puppy was so pleased. It did not matter that she had squeaked in front of lots of strangers on the way to finding the Dragon Mummy. She was filled with pride and smiled a big smile and quietly barked “THANK YOU”.