Songfacts®:

• The first single from Dolly Parton is a rockabilly-style ditty that finds the 13-year-old Tennessee native in "puppy love" with a boy who doesn't always treat her right. She wrote the song two years earlier with the help of her uncle Bill Owens, a country musician and songwriter. They collaborated again on the 1966 hit "Put It Off Until Tomorrow," among other tunes.
• Dolly recorded this at Goldband Records in Lake Charles, Louisiana, where her uncle Robert Henry was stationed in the Air Force. He sent her the money to get there and, after she and her grandmother got lost and had to sleep in a bus depot, she finally made it to cut her first record. Although it only played locally, Dolly couldn't contain her excitement when she heard her voice over the airwaves.
  
  "I remember the first time I heard myself on the radio," she recalled in her 2020 book, Songteller. "I about killed myself. I was sitting up on the counter, and the radio was on. I jumped off the counter and slid and fell trying to get to the radio to turn it up."
• Little did she know, she would actually experience puppy love when she arrived at the studio. Sparks flew when Goldband executive Ed Shuler introduced her to his son, Johnny. "He was the prettiest thing I had ever seen," she remembered. "We were about the same age, and that was my first big crush. My first big love and my first record."
• Now that she had a record under her belt, Dolly's uncle Bill Owens figured it was time for her to head to Nashville and the Grand Ole Opry. He convinced Opry star Jimmy C. Newman to give up one of his Saturday night spots and, at 13 years old, Dolly made her debut on the Opry stage. She was introduced by Johnny Cash, who said: "We've got a little girl here from up in East Tennessee. Her daddy's listening to the radio at home and she's gonna be in real trouble if she doesn't sing tonight, so let's bring her out here."
  
  Accompanied by Owens, she sang George Jones' "You Gotta Be My Baby" and received three encores.
• Dolly wasn't properly introduced to the world for another eight years, when she issued her debut album, Hello, I'm Dolly, featuring the Top 40 Country hits "Dumb Blonde" and "Something Fishy." By this time, she'd matured beyond canine crushes and married Carl Thomas Dean in 1966.
• Not to be confused with Paul Anka's "song of the same name," which hit #2 on the Hot 100 in 1960.
• In 2022, Parton's puppy love came full circle when she launched a line of doggie clothing called Doggy Parton. Proceeds go to an animal rescue center.