As I'm gushing about the love for our new dog, one of my co-workers looked at me and with a deadpan expression said, "You got a puppy? YOU ARE AN IDIOT."
His words surprised me. Until he explained that he had adopted a soft and cute and perfectly perfect puppy a year and a half prior. And he told me that it was only within the past few weeks, that he had stopped fantasizing about leaving his dog on the side of some desolate country road. His puppy pooped and peed and chewed and gnawed and scratched her first year through life and he honestly didn't think he, nor the wooden windowsills of his house, would be able to endure puppyhood.
(Luckily, they did.)
We estimate that Louie is around seven months old and he is doing better on the housebreaking front. He seems to have developed more control and won't spring a leak with no fair warning. Although he does deposit little prizes if you're not watching him closely.
(Little prizes that aren't really prizes, if you know what I mean.)
His favorite hobbies involve climbing in to an open dishwasher and licking all the plates, slyly jumping up and rooting for food off the counters, and whimpering at us whenever we sit down to eat. He also enjoys drinking water out of the toilet, pulling our arms out of their sockets when we take him for walks. And jumping all over ... whomever walks past ... whenever we're out for an evening stroll.
Charlie bought Cesar Milan's book and has read it cover-to-cover, twice.
I can't say that it's helped much.
The one challenge that we're struggling with, above all others, is that this puppy gets in to EVERY-THING. Which is tricky because we have four children who leave everything laying around. And even if it's not "laying around" if it's within twelve-inches of his standing-on-rear-legs-height, it's in the Louie Zone and will be quickly consumed. We have him safely cordoned off in the kitchen when we can't be watching him, but he has still managed to chew every handle on every single hair brush we own. Shoes, toys, belts ... chewed. Crayons are chewed and digested which means that clean ups are always colorful.
A few days ago, Charlie took the dog for a walk around the neighborhood and as they were making their way down our picturesque street, Louie gobbles something off the ground.
Now I'm guessing that we have some amorous teens living in our neighborhood. And I'm guessing that those amorous teens have discovered that our street which is very dark and very quiet, is a great place to park their car at night. And so it is that our puppy found an artifact that I believe had been used and tossed out the car window. An artifact that he chomped up and started to swallow and which my husband had to dig out of his throat. I was playing kickball in the front yard and could actually hear the yelling from several houses away, once Charlie realized what it was and worse yet - he had to TOUCH it in order to keep our dog from choking.
Oh, my oh, my oh, my. I'm sure one day he'll grow in to an amazing dog.
Today, he's just amazingly gross.
