Category Archives: dogs

Terror at (My) Two Feet

Song Lyric of the Day:

Well I have been quietly standing in the shade / All of my days / Watch the sky breaking on the promise that we made / All of this rain / And I’ve been trying to find / What’s been in my mind

Alexi Murdoch / “All My Days

8:06PM.
For those of you who have e-mailed asking me to write more about life with our new puppy, Troubadour, I have three words for you: tiny manorexic insomniac.

That’s right — Satan’s puppy is now trying out a third brand of food (Eukanuba was too hot, Purina Pro Plan too cold). We’re hoping Iams Smart Puppy food will be the one that’s just right. Never have we met a less food-motivated dog than this one. Granted, he’s obsessed with eating his big sister, Snoops’, food, but that’s about the extent of his interest in lowly dog food. Oh, and he throws tantrums whenever we dare to eat people food in front of him. Because nothing makes dinner more special than a puppy yelping as he hurls himself against your leg.

And it turns out Caleb spoiled us by sleeping for long stretches as a puppy. If Troubadour naps for 40 minutes, we call it a victory. He fights sleep like it’s his arch-nemesis. He’s even waking up earlier each day. He’s the Energizer Puppy — he just keeps going and going and going … Which is why his mommy and daddy are exhausted.

Caleb was by no means a perfect puppy; I never thought he’d get the hang of potty-training and I still haven’t quite forgiven him for destroying some of my precious movie posters (Backdraft! The Fugitive — with a typo!). But, boy, does he seem like a saint compared to his new baby brother.

At least they’re getting along really well. While Troubadour likes to bug Snoops by pulling her tail or grabbing her hind legs as she’s walking, he definitely has Caleb on a pedestal. So while Rich and I are going crazy trying to train him, we’re really enjoying watching his and Caleb’s relationship grow and deepen on a daily basis.

The true turning point for the two of them came five days
after we brought Troubadour home. That night, Caleb let his little brother sit between his front feet outside on the deck. Not only that, but he let Tru play with one of his Frisbee shards as he sat there. And if you know Caleb, you know how big a deal that was. So that’s when we knew they’d be OK.

Their relationship has progressed to the point that they now have nightly wrestling sessions, with Tru’s head fitting neatly inside his brother’s mouth. Today heralded another breakthrough: Tru learned how to play tug of war. Caleb is thrilled that Tru can now hang on to the rope to the point that his feet leave the ground when Caleb shakes it. Sure, Caleb has occasionally snapped at Tru to scare him and/or put him in his place. And Tru definitely knows how to yelp like you would not believe in order to summon us to placate him after having the crap scared out of him. Rich and I have actually had minor heart attacks when he does this; his yelping is so dramatic, you’d swear Caleb was eating him alive. Of course, as soon as Tru opens his mouth to scream for help, Caleb usually walks himself to his crate for a preemptive time out. Smart boy, that one.

The sharing of toys is still a work in progress, although for the most part Caleb leaves Tru’s tiny toys alone. There is an almost nightly session of keep-away, though, typically over the smallest bone in the house of their new mid-sized rope (given to them by their Auntie Caren).

Tiny Tru with Tiny Teddy
While Tru still has a lonnnnnng way to go in making friends with the cats, at least he’s on his way to becoming really well-integrated with Snoops and Caleb. And as soon as he takes a nice, long nap this weekend, I’ll start putting some of the tons of photos I’ve taken up in my Flickr album. In the meantime, here are a few to enjoy.


I wasn’t going to pull her tail, I swear.

Ooh! A kitty!

Hey, big brother.

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Filed under caleb, dogs, puppy, troubadour hobo

Puppysitting

Song Lyric of the Day:

The moon hides in the sky behind rows of tree tops / And I’m wishing I was somewhere up there / With the mermaids and stars / I run / I run far from / Reality to escape who I’ve become

Rosie Thomas / “I Run

1:08PM.
Caren dropped her puppy, Willow, off at our house this morning. Rich and I will be puppysitting her through the weekend. Caleb was beside himself, smiling and sneezing (smiling makes him sneeze) nonstop, alternating between smiling at and sneezing on Willow, and smiling at and sneezing on Rich and I as if to say, “Do you see her, too? See Willow? She’s right there!”

Snoops was also very happy to once again see Willow, although I would swear she was a bit disappointed to see that Willow now weighs in at a whopping 7.5 pounds versus the 5 she weighed during their first play date. Still, she immediately went into Mommy mode, following Willow around to make sure she was okay.

The cats were, and I assume still are, AWOL. At the very least, I’m sure they’re glaring at the interloper from the relative safety of the spiral staircase.

It means a lot to me that Caren trusts us with her sweet puppy. I imagine it’s partly because she knows Willow will be in good hands (she knows how spoiled my kids are) and because she knows that our dogs interact well with her. Again, the cats are another story. Yum Yum let Willow touch noses with him last time she came over, only to smack her hard. At least Willow stood her ground, barking at Yum Yum to let him know she was very disappointed in him, not to mention quite displeased.

Photo from Caren’s Flickr album.

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Filed under cats, dogs, puppies, puppysitting