Published Wednesday, July 08, 2009 9:34 AM
Updated Wednesday, July 08, 2009 9:35 AM
Like all proud parents, my Beloved and I are convinced this little guy is the smartest, most handsome young fellow who ever lived. Like all childless couples who talk too much to their pets, we also have a tendency to speak to both dogs in lengthy, well-thought out and logical complete paragraphs, all of which is completely lost on them.
Maybe dogs and kids are a lot more alike than we think …
Once I thought I was too old to be thinking about raising children in this freaky old world. Raising a puppy is pretty much confirmation of that. In fact, this hound’s very existence right now brings up a number of questions, the first, of course being the ever puzzling, “How can a creature the size of a bedroom slipper output exactly 17 times its own weight every three hours?
The second question, of course, is the ever puzzling, “Is there any material grown or manufactured on Planet Earth a puppy won’t chew to its very molecular structure?”
This brings us to the all-encompassing philosophical query of the day: “Are you insane?”
Still, he is a great addition to our household. He is a handsome fellow, indeed, with a terrific, albeit wide-open personality. He gets along very well with the children next door, often spending hours chasing them pell-mell across two yards. He gets along a little less well with his older adopted sister, our four-year-old Wonder Corgi, although she is lifting her lip at him a lot less than she used to. I predict the two will be getting each other into trouble for years to come.
My Beloved and I thought it might be helpful to find more information on raising puppies. We found a couple of books written by people who seemed to be knowledgeable on the subject. What I’m discovering is that their methods, pretty theories all, can only work on puppies that are fed liberal doses of Valium with their Kibbles and Bits.
Our little fellow is not quite Marley material but he does have a pretty independent streak in him. I guess the problem, if you can actually call it that, is that I have yet to find a disciplinary action that he doesn’t consider a game. To him, every object on earth, organic or inorganic, from bare feet to the deepest reeking recesses of the compost pile, is a toy. You can’t hit him -- we don’t want to, anyway -- because he thinks it’s a new wrasslin’ game pitting him against daddy’s bare and tender fingers. We’ve tried a squirt gun, which sort of works. It diverts his attention from chewing furniture and refocuses it on a new wrasslin’ game pitting him against daddy’s bare and tender fingers, which are clearly wrapped around the evil water spitter thingy.
As for toys, he has a couple of favorites, a stuffed squirrel, which resides in all its ragged, squeaking glory in his crate, and a big ball on a rope that growls when he plays tug of war with it. He likes these pretty well, but his two absolute favorites appear to be an empty plastic water bottle and foam rubber beer coozie.
One of the books said something about this age being a time of “fear imprinting.” This must be a part of the brain totally missing from this hound; nothing scares him badly or for very long. He doesn’t like the sound the garage door makes when it opens, and like his big sister, the Wonder Corgi, he’s not at all fond of the vacuum cleaner. But anything else is fair game.
One of the funniest things I’ve watched him do lately is this dogged – pardon the expression –attempt to herd this huge rubber exercise ball we have in the garage. You know the kind – one of those things people use to do back and stomach exercises, about the size of an oversized school library globe. If you give it a gentle nudge, it will roll slowly and ponderously toward the puppy. He will immediately go into herding mode and, yipping and bugling, he will attempt to nip its heels and direct it to the far corner of the garage. The fact that a giant rubber ball the size of a school library globe has no legs or heels does not seem to bother him. It’s something that obviously needs to be herded and that’s that.
Now if I could just get him to instinctively grab the sports section and head to the yard whenever he feels the urge to purge.
Oh well; at least he’s using the sports section.