My Dog, Yoda

Yoda is my amazing dog.  She is nine years old and a pure bred Boston Terrier.  She has the breed’s traditional black and white coloring with some reddish spotting called brindle on her sides.  Her snout is very short, my dad says it’s like she walked right into a wall.   Yoda got her name from the Star Wars character because when my parents brought her home, she had these huge pointy ears and big bulging eyes much like the Star Wars character.  Yoda was so tiny and playful, she was also very accident-prone.  When she was two months old, my mom and sister were playing with her in the front of the house when she got her leash tangled up in one of our bikes.  She tried to pull away and the bike fell on her.  Yoda was alright except for a broken paw.  For the next two months, Yoda had on cast on her entire leg, we had to get it re-wrapped every week because she kept chewing holes in the cast.  We eventually had to get her one of those plastic cones to prevent her from chewing.  Unfortunately, the cone was too big for her and she couldn’t reach her food bowl.  She looked so sad and pathetic with the cone and cast.  Now, nine years later, she is perfectly healthy, though a little afraid of loud noises and she jumps when something large falls on the ground.

Until recently she never really barked at anyone, except for the mailman.  All day, all she does is lie around the house napping. She will nap in any bed, on any couch, in the middle of the hallway, and even under the dining room table.  She loves chasing the squirrels and birds out of our back yard and will sit on the deck watching for something to chase.  She brings so much joy to our family, I don’t know what we would do without her!

Vocabulary:

Breed (noun) – lineage; stock; strain.

Snout (noun) –  the part of an animal’s head projecting forward and containing the nose and jaws.

Accident (noun) –  an undesirable or unfortunate happening that occurs unintentionally and usually results in harm, injury, damage, or loss.

Cast (noun) – a rigid surgical dressing, usually made or bandage treated with plaster of Paris.

Eventually (adverb) – finally; ultimately; at some later time.

Prevent (verb) – to keep from occurring; avert; hinder.

Afraid (adjective) –  feeling fear; filled with apprehension.

Chase (verb) – to pursue in order to seize, overtake, etc.

Joy (noun) – the emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying.

Exercise:

1) Johnny broke his arm after falling off the swing, he had to wear a __________ for six weeks.

2) During last night’s rainstorm, I went around the house and closed all the windows to _________________ the rain from coming in.

3) Sheila didn’t realize she was ________________ of heights until she reached the top of ladder.

4) When  you are looking for a dog, you should first decide what type of __________________ you want.

5) It was an _____________________ when the kids broke the neighbors window during wiffle ball game.

6) Dad said that it would ____________________ stop raining on our vacation.

7) The dog was so hungry that he shoved his _______________ into his food dish before the boy even put it on the ground. 

8) Everyone seems to be filled with ___________ during the Christmas season.

9) We have to keep our dog, Ginger, on a leash when we take her outside or else she will _______________ our neighbor’s cat.

Grammar Point: 

A pronoun takes the place of a noun. Can you find at least 10 pronouns in the paragraph above?