I've been house sitting for my sister for the past couple of days and have been thrown back into the wild and crazy world of having a puppy around. Pam and her husband have a 10(ish) month old pup Sophie who, even though she is highly entertaining, is such a pain 95% of the time. My last blog was about the death of our family dog Rizzo, and even though it was 15 years ago that she was a puppy, I don't remember her being as crazy as Sophie is. Riz didn't jump up on counters or have the level of separation anxiety as Sophie does. I feel like I can never fully relax because I am on constant Sophie-patrol, meaning that she could be up to anything and anytime and in any part of the house, so I have to be on high alert to make sure she's not pulling gloves, knives, bottles, beer cans, lids, food...off of the counter, or pulling the garbage out of the bathroom and dragging it around the house. We've learned to keep all bedroom and bathroom doors closed at all time because there is no telling what she will find exciting enough to steal away and bring to her bed to gnaw on. Unfortunately she somehow grabbed a roll of toilet paper from my bathroom and destroyed it all over the living room rug. Being here for the weekend is a great reminder that I don't ever want to own a puppy again and that a full grown dog from the SPCA will be a great addition to my life sometime in the future.
Plus she has the worst dog farts right now and is grossing me out.
But like I said, puppies are very entertaining creatures to have around. They are very simple minded and find happiness in the smallest things, such as apples, sticks, bugs, grass, old rotten zucchinis and basically anything that gets in their line of vision. I've been taking them on the same walk for the past 3 days and every time at the exact same spot on the trail, Sophie gets this burst of energy and runs back and forth up the trail while lunging at Splash trying to get her to play with her. And every time she does this, Splash turns to me with this defeated look that clearly displays that she thinks this pup is a lunatic who she wish would just leave her be to enjoy the walk.
This morning's walk was full of adventure and fun though! After finding someone's discarded bag of garbage (that Sophie ate a lot of) and a big pile of some kind of animal excrement (which Sophie ate a lot of) AND some more garbage left behind farther down the trail (which Sophie ate some of and ran around excitedly with in her mouth until I chased her down and made her drop it), we came across an old deer carcass. The trail is at the bottom of the bank which follows alongside the highway, so I am guessing that the deer was hit by a car, landed in the bushes on the side of the highway and somehow made its way to the bottom of the bank (probably an animal dragged it down) and landed on the trail for us to find. I let the dogs investigate it and give it a good sniff, then proceeded to carry on down the trail while calling them to come along. Splash gave up quite quickly and followed along but Sophie panicked at the idea of leaving this amazing carcass behind and decided to try to pull it home. She grabbed a hold of a rib bone and pulled with all her puppy might, only to drag it about an inch. I could see the excitement in her eyes as she tried her best to get this thing to come along with us, but she soon realized that this was a lost cause. No doubt she'll try again next time she's that way again.
Tip of the Day: Puppies are relentless and will push your every button until your head hypothetically explodes. Always have lots of tasty treats around to bribe them with.
No comments:
Post a Comment