On the leash

"Let's mess with her head."

Rosie is perfect on walks. She was five months old when we invested in leash training, and it paid off beautifully. She walks next to me, on the right side, and the leash is slack. (Unless there is a rabbit or a cat.) She matches her speed to mine.

The training was a huge pain because it involved not letting her take even one step unless she was at my side, leash loose. I hated the training; it sucked all the joy out of walks and it frustrated her and it meant I couldn't swing along, untrammeled and fast but had to keep stopping and whirling around and making her sit and then telling her walk and then we'd walk two or three steps and she'd tried to pull and I'd have to stop her again.

But oh, it was worth it, every bit of it, because she learned how to walk nicely on the leash and after not that long of a time--a few weeks--there was no more pulling and jerking and I didn't have to get PT for tennis elbow as I did when Riley was younger.

Well, all of that is out the window now.

"I can't believe anyone thinks we are capable of doing wrong."

Because now we have Angus, and Angus doesn't understand the rules of the leash, and he is here and then he's there and then he's behind me and wrapping the leash around my leg and then he's walking directly under my foot and I have to stutter-step to avoid squashing him and if we're on ice, as we often are these days, all bets are off.

And Rosie sees this and decides, what the hell! I guess there are no rules anymore! And she starts meandering off to the left, and grabbing her own leash in her mouth and instituting a game of tug, which she knows damn well she is not supposed to do, especially on ice (she knows damn well that on ice we walk very carefully, almost a simper) and I think it is a good thing that it is the dead of winter and there are very few people out and they cannot hear me swear.

I do, I swear, I mutter, I talk nonstop to the dogs like a crazy person. "Christ on a bike!" I say, and "Goddamn it to hell!" and tonight I actually told them, as they dragged me in a zigzag way down a very icy hill (thanks, St. Paul!) toward Como Lake, "I am just going to chop a goddamn hole in the ice and throw you both in!"

To be fair, when they both walk nicely, which is actually usually more than half the time, it's great. Tonight, for instance, when they behaved, it was a glorious walk. Angus strutted along with his little General Angus S. Grant swagger, and Rosie nudged my hand sweetly for treats and looked at me hopefully, and neighbors have gritted their sidewalks after yesterday's snow so I didn't break my neck, and as we approached the house it started snowing gently, lightly, beautifully. And all was forgiven. Until the next time.

Tuesday night

We did not watch Trump.

We were busy.

A day that could only get better

I think if I could just stay awake until 10 p.m. and let Angus out for one last backyard visit at that time, he might be able to make it until 5 or even (oh, lovely thought!) 5:30 a.m. As it is, though, I have not slept through the night since he arrived on Dec. 29 and when I climb in bed at 9:15 with my book and all good intentions, I am out for the count within about twenty minutes. Or ten.

So Monday at 4 a.m. came the familiar chuckles and chirps that meant if you do not let me out of this crate now I will begin to scream!

(All you who think you want a puppy, take note.)

Out we went, into that glossy ice rink of a yard under the black starry sky, and Angus did what he had to do, and when we went back in the house instead of hopping up the stairs to his crate, as he always does, he zipped into the dining room and curled up in the radiator dog bed next to Rosie.

They looked so sweet and cozy I almost left him there. But then I started thinking of all the trouble he could get into, unsupervised, for an hour--the things he could chew, or pee on, or otherwise destroy; the things he could eat (bottle caps, or paper clips, or rubber bands) that would screw up his innards worse than they already are, and require expensive surgery--and I made him come upstairs.

The compromise was that instead of putting him back into his crate, I put him in our bed, and that seemed like a pretty good compromise to me.

After breakfast Doug and I loaded him into the little travel crate in the back of my car and we drove the nine or ten blocks to the vet, and when we opened up the hatchback holy mother of god, the dog had puked all over. All over himself, and the crate, and the crate blankets, and his leash, and in trying to get him out of the car we ended up with puke on our pants and shoes and gloves and the sleeve of my jacket, and later, when Doug was at work, he noticed a tiny bit of puke on his shoe.

This was not like the cartoon splat puke of the trip to Minneapolis to get photographed by Leslie Plesser; this was a silent puke, and it was his entire breakfast, still recognizable as kibble and so not completely disgusting.

But still. Our little boy does not like the car.

So before he could see the vet we had to borrow a damp rag from the vet techs and wipe him down, and ourselves, too, and when we were all presentable we went into the exam room.

The upshot of the visit was this: his weight is good (he is now a bit over 17 pounds--he has gained about four pounds in three and a half weeks--not a scary amount), and his heart sounds good, and everything is excellent except for his bowels, which, Dr. J. said, are "turgid."

I have not heard the word turgid used in this context before, but since I have been out in the back yard at 4 a.m. and other times, I knew exactly what he meant.

The vet tech was besotted with him--(Angus, that is, though we all love Dr. J, of course)--she took him in the back room and administered the booster shot and Angus, she told me later, just laid his head on her shoulder and cuddled. That's my boy!

So we are now in the experimentation stage.  We will test him to see if he has worms (his last test was negative, but they want another test), and we will give him kibble but nothing else to eat for a while--no pumpkin, no fish skins, no Charlee Bears, no Trader Joe's Grain-Free Gingerbread Snacks, no bottle caps, no paper clips, no rubber bands.

We can do this, even though it breaks my heart not to slip him a teeny tiny puppy-sized Milk Bone from time to time.  But we need to see how he does on the kibble, and if his innards remain turgid, then we will change his food.

Angus doesn't care. He'll eat anything, and kibble is just as delicious to him as Trader Joe's Grain-Free Gingerbread Snacks.  I'm the one who feels bad about this.

And now it is 7:30 p.m. and the second half of my experiment is about to kick in: Can I stay awake until 10 p.m.?

Check back tomorrow.

St. Angus

He's not really a saint. But it does look like he has a halo.

 The fluffy, pristine 14 inches of snow that fell on Monday has shrunk and hardened with two days above freezing. The moisture has evaporated out of it and we are left with shorter piles that are crusted over with ice. Now that the cold is settling in again, our back yard sidewalk is bumpy ridges of grey ice and the pathways we snowblowed through the drifts for the dogs to race through are as hard and slick as a bobsled run.

We need more snow. We are not getting more snow.

The yard is not a hospitable place now, and it is causing a setback in housebreaking--after days with no accidents in the house, Angus is regressing. And it's hard to blame him. Who would want to leave a warm cozy nest of fleece for a blast of cold air and hard, slick ice in order to do one's crouch?

We put him outside and he turns and runs back to the porch. He has figured out all kinds of ways to get up the barricaded steps. and he long ago blasted through the left-hand square of screen on our screen door, making his own little cat door that Rosie cannot fit through.

I stand out there until I am shivering, waiting, and sometimes he complies and sometimes he doesn't. Which is why he is back in his crate right now.

"This hula hoop isn't all that scary but give me a treat anyway."

 But, that said, he had a great day yesterday. A walk with Doug and Rosie and me (on bumpy ice, but nobody fell), and then puppy class, where he got to show off his sit and down and stay, and then the teacher brought out all kinds of awkward, bulky, potentially scary-to-puppies objects and strewed them around the floor. Each dog had to navigate each object three times--crutches and umbrellas and hula hoops and walkers and baby strollers and tarps that made crackling noises when stepped on.

Puppies go through two fear periods, the teacher said, and the first is when they are between about 8 and 16 weeks old--exactly where Angus is now. (He will be 12 weeks on Tuesday.) During those fear periods, they either develop fears that can last their entire lives, or they learn to overcome each fear, one by one. And so she pushed a walker through the scrum of puppies and we gave them treats like mad, and each dog had to sit and lie down inside a hula hoop (no problem for Angus), and, the very best, they got to race through a tunnel.

"No problem. But give me a treat anyway."

 Some dogs wouldn't go in the tunnel, but Angus loved it. I see agility training in his future!

Rosie had liked the tunnel too, back in the day.

He was only nervous around two things: the baby stroller, and the walker, though with the teacher reaching through the walker to hand him treats he soon came around.

And then we walked home, carefully, along the grey icy sidewalks, and in the interest of trying to meet 100 new people a week he met three more: my brother, his wife, and their granddaughter.

Meanwhile, digestive problems continue (hello, 1 a.m.! Hello, 4 a.m.!) and tomorrow morning he sees Dr. J. The appointment is for a distemper booster shot, but we will discuss his innards as well. I fear he's getting skinny.

Mr. Middle of the Night

Rosie can eat anything, and does, and wishes she could eat more. No matter what contraband she discovers and devours, she never exhibits any ill effects. She has a Lab cast-iron stomach. Riley was that way, too. Except for the time when, as a puppy, he discovered the garbage bag full of discarded Gravy Train (we had seen the error of our ways and started feeding our dogs much better-quality kibble) and ate nearly all of it, only to stagger out of the garage, belly distended, crawl under the lilac bush, and retch horribly--except for that time, Riley, too, was pretty much Stomach of Steel.

Angus, we are learning, is more of a Stomach of Glass kind of pup, much like Boscoe was. One little dietary change and it throws the whole digestive system off.

Yesterday was a good puppy day. A longish walk in the balmy sunrise morning--weirdly warm for January (which of course now means everything is icy), playtime in the yard (as photographed by Doug), visits from the high school girl and the dogwalker, and then evening robust play in the yard with the neighbor Brittanies.

What more could a puppy ask for? What more, you ask? How about a knuckle bone!? A new one, coated in some sort of meat-flavored-god-knows what, stuffed with something else I don't understand (marrow, one would hope), something to chew and gnaw for days and weeks to come....

Of course both dogs chewed all of the meat (or whatever it is) off the bone immediately, and Rosie dug out most of the marrow, and they went to bed happy.

And Angus got up at 1. Stomach ache. I took him out.
And 2. Stomach ache. Doug took him out.
And 4. Stomach ache. I took him out.

By then Doug had moved across the hall to try to salvage some of the night, so I plopped Angus onto the bed with me and we both fell asleep.  And when I woke up two hours later, he was lying on my arm, warm and soft, and delicately nibbling on my thumb.

There are worse ways to wake up.

Oh--he now weighs 16.5 pounds. He is just a few days shy of 12 weeks old.

Fence buddies

Greta and Gus, the Brittany spaniels next door, are Angus and Rosie's buddies. Normally they just like to catch up on the gossip through the fence (see picture), but tonight we all had an impromptu play date because the snow is so high at the fence that Gus can pretty much just leap over it into our yard.

That is not what happened--he's a little too meek to do that--but all four dogs ended up in our yard anyway, and Angus and Gus, evenly matched, rolled each other and raced around and hid in the fort they dug under the spirea bush.  Rosie and Greta, both tennis-ball obsessed, spent their time racing after tennis balls. They used to roll each other, too, back when Greta was a puppy, but now she is grown up and much more dignified.

I tell you, at the end of a long day that started with a visit to the dentist and ended with a long damn bus ride there is nothing better than watching four dogs playing and rolling each other in the snow.

A few words about dancing and peeing

This is exactly the dance that Angus does when I bring out his bowl of food. I do make him sit, and I try to make him wait, but really all he wants to do is dance. (And eat.)

I need to think about this sheer innocent exuberance in order to keep from killing him when he exasperates me, which, I must admit, he does daily. Hourly. Minutely.

Take this morning, for instance. It started great: he slept through the night! All the way to 5 a.m.! All credit to the high school girl who had a snow day yesterday and so played with the dogs for a full hour in the back yard. Anyone who can wear out a puppy--wear out my puppy--is a saint.

I took Rosie and Angus for a half-hour walk through the park, no disasters, though Angus started chewing on the leashes about ten minutes from home, and Rosie saw a fox and went ballistic. But that was fine, a slight irritation (especially to sleeping neighbors, I fear) but not really a full aggravation.

No, the problem arose ten minutes before my bus. I could have just put Angus to bed and frittered away the last few minutes on Facebook, but I figured, I have a live animal! Two of them! Way better than virtual animals!

So I opened the back door and shooed them out. I turned to get my coat and I heard the all-too-familiar pssssssss sound. Yes, Angus was peeing on the back porch. I guess the back porch is, technically, outside, but it is not an authorized place to pee, and this was the second time in two days he has done this.

I yelled. I did, I yelled. NOOOOOOOO! And Angus looked up, startled. I grabbed him, hustled down the stairs, plopped him in the snow, and he resumed his pee.

Back in the house. I was putting on my boots when I heard psssssssss. Yes, Angus was peeing again, what appeared to be a gallon of pee, right on the living room rug.

"Sorry."

 I did, I yelled again. NOOOOOOO! The problem with yelling is (a) I'm not supposed to do it, according to the puppy teacher, and (b) it upsets Rosie, who doesn't know why I'm angry, and who flies over to my side and tries to crawl in my lap.

Needless to say, I missed my bus.

I put Angus back out, brought him back in, and put him in his bed.

Never was I so happy to slam the crate door on a puppy.

I ran into a neighbor at the bus stop and griped to her. She laughed. Her dog, she said, was the same way as a puppy. I got on the bus. And all the way to work, all I could think about was, I miss him! I can't wait to go home!

(Of course, now that I am home, he is chewing holes in our orange afghan...but at least he's not peeing on it.)

A little perspective, please

Their favorite room, not surprisingly, is the kitchen.

I have gone on breathlessly about how gigantic Angus is going to be, and how much he is growing, and how quickly. But a little perspective: He can still walk right underneath Rosie's belly when he wants to, like walking under a bridge. He just did it again, five minutes ago in the back yard.

The snow we got yesterday--well over a foot--comes up way past his vitals, and we had to snowblow some pathways so that he can do his business. He trots around them earnestly and every now and then plunges off the trail into the snow and nearly gets stuck. I think he has not yet decided whether or not he likes the snow. It confuses him a little.

He is 11 weeks old as of Tuesday and weighs 15 pounds. At 11 weeks, Rosie weighed 13.5 pounds. So yes, she was smaller, but not that much smaller. And yes, he will be big, but he is not big yet. 

I need to calm down.

He is hoping to be tall enough soon for counter-surfing; right now he is the master of counter bouncing. He boings up and tries to catch a glimpse of what's on the counters as he plummets back toward the floor.

Rosie was famous for counter-surfing; she was drawn by one thing: butter, and butter alone.

Long-legged Rosie could counter-surf at 11 weeks. Angus is still not tall enough.

Well, maybe butter and milk bones.

WEDNESDAY MORNING UPDATE: Angus slept through the night. I think he was worn out from playing in the snow. More snow, please!

Big snow, small dog

"I am afraid it will swallow me up!"

We got a lot of snow on Monday, and Angus wasn't sure what to think. He's already made it clear that he is a dog who does not much care to be cold, and now I am getting the sense that he doesn't much care to be wet, either. Or buried. And by evening, he was all three: I'm not sure how much snow we got, but something more than a foot. It's beautiful! I can go snowshoeing!

I worked from home because Angus has been sick for four days--sick-ish, that is; he romps and eats just fine, but his digestion has been problematic, to say the least, and I wasn't going to have him trapped in a soiled kennel for hours and hours like he was on Friday.

(At this point, I have to say that I am more than grateful to have a job and an employer that make it pretty easy for me to work at home. I can patch into the work computer, much of my job requires reading, and it works out pretty well. I actually prefer going into the newsroom, but on a day like Monday--sick puppy and blizzard--home is good.)

A black dog with a white puffy and a black-and-white brother in white snow.

He seems better. I made him a slurry of ground beef and white rice and he wolfed it down for breakfast and had no problems. I gave him some more midday, and then a little more for dinner--I am completely unsure how much to give him, but three modest servings seemed to make sense, and unless he is crapping somewhere very secret, I think it's safe to say there have been no disasters.  The real test, of course, will be overnight, which is when he has been having the most difficulty.

In between answering emails, editing reviews, writing the story announcing the NBCC finalists (the reason I was in New York), and reading the latest book I am reviewing, I took the dogs outside, and I shoveled snow. Every time I took Angus out, he turned around and raced back into the house and I had to carry him out again. He's fast.

Once outside, he spent part of the time sitting on the top porch step, watching and looking mournfully toward the door, and part of the time he spent zooming across the snow, chasing Rosie. The zooming made me happy.

I didn't kennel him when I went out to shovel, but let them roam free in the house; I figured I wouldn't be gone that long. But it doesn't take a puppy very long to get into trouble.

The first time I came in from shoveling, I found my iPhone in the middle of the front hallway. The second time, I found the living room reading lamp unplugged and the extension cord dragged across the floor. And the third time I came in, I found Angus cheerfully gnawing away at my winter hat, which had been drying on the radiator.

He's full of mischief, which is good. I think he's feeling better. I hope he's feeling better. I think we all need a good night's sleep.

Unclear on the concept

Down at the lake, making friends. Who could resist those eyes?

Yesterday afternoon was balmy, and so we took both dogs down to the lake. Angus needs socialization!

Every person I saw, I walked up to and said, "Would you like to meet a puppy?"

Nobody said no. Two young women said, "Well, yeaahhhh!" like I was an idiot for even asking; they crouched down and oohed and aahed and scratched his ears like mad.

Some people had dogs with them, and Angus seemed wary of some, playful with others.  I handed each person a Charlee Bear and asked them to give it to Angus only if Angus wasn't jumping on them. We need to not only teach him to be friendly to everyone, but also to be polite.

One woman said she was thankful that I am teaching him not to jump; she said she was once bitten by a dog that jumped on her, and she is afraid. (She was not afraid of Angus, but she was a little more standoffish than her friend, who knelt down on the walking path to reach him.)

It was heartening to see so many dog-lovers--we stopped people with strollers and dogs, young men who had to take their earbuds out and ask, 'What?" to understand, young women, older women, people who didn't speak much English--and everyone was happy to say hello to Angus.

On the way home, we encountered one more couple. They had a small yippy dog that was flying around on the end of its leash; a good test for Angus, because it was a little nerve-racking. We chatted a while, and then I handed the woman a Charlee Bear. "Would you like to give him a treat?" I said.

"Oh, yes!" she said, and handed the treat to her own dog.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA NOT WHAT I MEANT but that was ok. Her dog deserved a treat too.  We walked on.

Angus and Greta

Angus had a great and busy day--not just the walk to the lake, but a robust 45 minutes or hour playing in the yard with Rosie, Greta and Gus. I had high hopes that he would conk out and sleep through the night.  But no such luck.

He is still having digestive problems, and he was up four times overnight (and so was I).

This morning I made him a slurry of white rice and ground beef in hopes that a few meals of that will calm his stomach down. I also wonder if the Charlee Bears are not agreeing with him.

We need to get our boy back on track. He needs to feel better, and we all need our sleep.

Angus and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

And his day would have been even worse if not for the magical goddess of Mary the dogwalker.

I am back from New York and all is well. I've just come indoors from almost an hour of dog fun--Angus and Rosie in the trampled back yard, playing with Greta and Gus, the Brittany spaniels next door. Gus is just a couple of weeks older than Angus, and only a little smaller. (Skinnier. He can slide into places pudgy Angus cannot.)

A Cooper's hawk flew into the neighbor's birch tree and watched for a while, but the dogs were playing right around the spirea bush, which this time of year is loaded not with flowers but with sparrows (tasty morsels to a Cooper) and finally the Cooper flew off in frustration. "Too many dogs," it might have muttered.

It is so nice to be home.

But Friday--Oh, Friday. Poor Angus. I WILL NEVER LEAVE YOU AGAIN, ANGUS.  (Until mid-March, when I have to go back to New York.)

Angus eats puppy chow, little tiny kibbles no bigger than pieces of grit. But he's growing fast, so last week we decided to switch him to the same brand of kibble but for larger puppies. Same kibble, just bigger. Right? Well, apparently not exactly the same.

When you switch a dog's food, you do so gradually. Sudden change can upset their digestive systems. Well, adding 1/3 cup of the new kibble to his current kibble was enough to upset our boy. Thursday night he was up four times--10:30 p.m., midnight, 2 and 4 a.m., the fourth time for a very unpleasant task in the back yard.

I was a zombie at work Friday morning and I had to catch the train to the airport by 1 p.m. There was no way to go home and check on him before I left--I don't drive to work, and the buses take 45 minutes. To make matters worse,  the high school girl who normally lets him out at noon was not able to come that day.

Ack. Poor Angus, with a bad stomach, stuck in his crate for hours!

Mary to the rescue. She moved up her afternoon visit from 3 to 2, and when I told her that I wouldn't be able to let him out at 6 as I normally do and Doug wouldn't be home until after 7 p.m., she said she'd come back at 6 and let him out again.

Generous as it was of her, it was not quite enough for Angus. When she got there at 2, he had soiled his crate, and he was miserable. She played it down in her email to me ("There was a little soft stool in his bedding," she wrote. "He acted normal on the walk, though, and loved a few treats.")

But it was bad enough that she took his soft frog blanket home with her to wash.

Did you read that? She took his soft frog blanket home with her to wash.

I don't even know how to thank someone who would do this!

And then she came back at 6.  But by the time Doug got home at 7, more mess. The bedding inside his crate was soaked. Doug had to wash everything, and he reported that Angus was in an owly mood, grabbing things, chewing them, even destroying the white Christmas lights we had draped along the radiator.  "Puppy drama," Doug wrote.

You can imagine how I felt, far away in New York, sleep-deprived, worried, feeling terrible guilt for not being home.

The report Saturday morning was not good. "We were up at 1:15, 3:15, and 5," Doug reported. "A lot of pooping. He pooped in the hallways upstairs after having been out at 5."

He decided--wisely, I think--not to take Angus to puppy class.

But as Saturday wore on, things began to improve. Doug went back to the old kibble. He bought a second fleece toy to eliminate the toy jealousy that had reared its ugly head last week, and texted me photos of Rosie and Angus playing with it. Angus's stomach settled down, and Doug took both dogs for a walk in the weird January thaw. He kept Angus so busy that Angus slept solidly all night. (But Doug didn't. "I kept waiting to hear him chirp," he said.) And truth be told I didn't either, in my bed in New York, thinking about home.

And now it is Sunday afternoon, and I am home, and the dogs have played, and they are both in the crates sound asleep and I might go take a nap myself.

Just now I went out on the back porch for something or other and there, nicely folded, soft and clean was Angus's frog blanket. Mary brought it by and left it for us very quietly. I am speechless.

Angus's to-do list

TEN THINGS ANGUS STILL NEEDS TO LEARN

1. Coats are not edible.
2. Slippers are not edible.
3. Boots are not edible.
4. Laurie's toes are not edible.
5. Throw rugs are not edible.
6. The list of what is not edible is much longer than the list of what is edible.
7. If you throw your body at a door and scratch at it, it will not open.
8. If you sit nicely by the door and wait, chances are it will open.
9. No matter how much you lick the bottom of your empty dish, no more kibble will magically appear.
10. Two weeks ago, it was cute when you tried to tug Laurie's socks off of her feet but now it is getting annoying.

I am leaving this afternoon for New York and will be back on Sunday. Poor Doug must go it alone, including taking Angus to puppy class by himself, even though it is a two-person job just wrestling Angus into his harness.

This puppy has only been part of my life for a few weeks--not even a month yet. But being away from him for two nights seems so sad! So lonely! I will miss him!  Except--except--when he mews and chirps and barks at midnight and at 4 a.m., I won't hear him.

I might, for the first time since Dec. 29, get a full night's sleep.  Aaaaahhhhhh.

If you need an Angus fix while I'm away, check out the Pets page in the Saturday, Jan. 20, Star Tribune. He gets the back page of Variety: full color. Well worth your fifty cents, and the start of an occasional puppy column by me, featuring him.

Angus, you're gonna be a star.

A calmer night, a balmy walk

Puppy at peace

Oh, such a lovely night. Twenty-something degrees, and I walked with both dogs and we ran into a neighbor, and she walked with us, and Angus did so well on the leash and Rosie trotted along like the pro she is, and at an intersection we saw a man with a bicycle who had stopped to text or check his phone for something or other, and I asked him if he would mind meeting a puppy and even though he was very clearly not a dog person, he complied.

Angus is supposed to meet ten people every week and they are supposed to give him treats, but I tell you, in this weather, it's just not possible.

And I am leaving for New York on Friday night and I will not see Angus for hours and hours and hours. I love going to New York but in some ways this will feel like a wasted weekend--I won't be home until Sunday afternoon! I will miss two days of his little life! (Oh god--what if he doubles in size?)

Meal time went smoothly. Doug got their bowls ready while we were walking, and we blockaded Rosie in the kitchen and fed her, and fed Angus out in the front hall, and Rosie got to eat first (which I have learned is the right way to do it--status, and all) and all was peaceful.

And now Doug has them both in the back yard and the teakettle is whistling and all is right in our little doggie world.

My goodness, what big paws you have!

More adventures ahead, I am sure, most likely involving counter surfing (Angus likes to jump) and cabinet-eating (he has taken to licking the outside of the dishwasher, which serves to remind me what a haphazard housekeeper I am) and, of course, chewing. He likes to pull the socks off my feet and then race around with them.

But for now, tonight, all is peaceful.

Sibling rivalry

Angus at the Shuttersmack studio. Photo by Leslie Plesser.

Rosie loves Angus, as long as he stays in his place. And as far as she is concerned, his place has no toys and no food.

Yes, we are seeing flashes of sibling rivalry. Not often--right now they are playing tug nicely, and by nicely I mean they are growling and barking at each other as they pull (and how they bark with a tug toy in their mouth I will never quite understand).  But sometimes.

We are learning that there are toys that are considered to be "high value," as the puppy class teacher would put it.  Rope tugs are ordinary value. The blue plush bull that squeaks is medium value. The knuckle bones, when we first handed them out, are high value. Rosie wanted them all for herself, and she got snappish, and we had to take the knuckle bones away for a while.

The puffy fleece toy that we bought Angus on Sunday he hasn't had a chance to play with yet. That one is extremely high value (as far as Rosie is concerned), and so it is back in the toy box, and the toy box is put away where they cannot raid it.

Last night I came home and we played tug and ran all over the snowy back yard and then, because it wasn't direly bitterly cold (it was one below zero; such an improvement over eleven below) that I snapped on the leashes and we walked around the block under the dark and starry sky.

Walking Angus is like flying a kite on a windy day--you hang tight to the string and hope it doesn't go sailing off. Rosie walks nicely at my right side, but Angus is all over the place and we both try not to step on him. Leash training is in his future, but not his immediate future; he is still just little.

Back home I started to get their kibble ready when there was a sudden and fierce altercation. I can't tell you who started it--it appeared to be mutual, and it was not friendly. Rosie went after Angus and when I got her off of him Angus went after Rosie (all 14 pounds of him). I was, briefly, terrified, and then I got angry. GO TO BED, I said, and they both zipped into their kennels and I slammed the doors.

Now what?

I finished pouring out the kibble, got Rosie out of her kennel, fed her in the kitchen with the doorways blocked, got Angus out of his kennel, fed him in the hallway, and all was peaceful.

But man oh man I had not seen that before, had not seen that coming.  In three weeks of Angus being here, there has been no food aggression. This was sudden, and this was fierce.

Our other dogs did not have this: Riley used to hide under the table when his food was being prepared (and I always suspected that in his first home something had happened to terrify him at mealtime). Toby, who was a solo dog for five years, was always pretty indifferent about food; I'd put his kibble out and he'd ignore it for hours and then in the middle of the night I would wake up to hear crunch-crunch-crunch coming from the kitchen.

But Rosie is deeply food motivated, and we have screwed up her five-year food schedule by bringing Angus into the mix.  Puppy eats first, the puppy teacher said, and so for five years Rosie was our puppy and she was fed before Riley. But now Angus is the puppy, and Rosie does not like it.

Time and vigilance. All this will improve with time and vigilance. This is the mantra of the puppy owner.

Breaching the barricades

"Let me in."

We have two baby gates: one indoors, one outdoors.

When Rosie is eating in the kitchen and Angus is eating in the front hall, we prop a baby gate in the kitchen doorway to keep them apart. When I go upstairs, we prop the gate at the bottom of the stairs to keep Angus from following me. (He likes to grab my socks.) When we take the dogs into the basement for morning coffee, we prop the gate at the bottom of the basement stairs to keep Angus from escaping.

When we are outside, we prop the gate at the bottom of the porch stairs to keep Angus (who hates the cold) from dashing back to the house.

We don't wedge the gate into each doorway because it's a pain to constantly change the width of it for different locations. But we might have to start.

Angus has been with us three weeks, and in that time he has learned to breach each one of those barricades.  Outside, he circumvents the gate by going around to the side of the stairs and squeezing under the banisters.  Inside, he merely hurls his little (but constantly-growing) body against the gate or swipes at it with a gigantic paw until it slides down enough for him to climb over it.

Just now I was upstairs, brushing my teeth, and suddenly there he was, was at my side, and I realized that the last of the barricades had fallen.

The only thing he cannot yet do is go down the stairs. Once he masters that, the house will be his oyster, his kingdom, and we will merely be his servants, following behind, picking up torn paper and chewed puffy toys, bowing to his majesty. All hail Angus the conqueror!

Never forget, we did it all for Rosie. (And a little for us.)

Yes, the little guy pounces on her constantly and sometimes bites her ear and tries to steal her toys and is a general pain in the butt. But we got Angus because we thought Rosie needed a puppy and I maintain that we were right.

For one thing, Rosie is getting all kinds of extra things now--chew toys and knuckle bones and rope tugs. For another thing, she is playing way more than she has in a long time, and this is nothing but good. At the end of the day, she is tired.

And for another thing, she is getting waaaaay more treats than she normally gets because every time Angus gets a treat she is right there, staring with those big eyes, and so I make her sit or lie down (you never treat a dog unless the dog has earned it somehow) and she does so, perfectly, she mastered those skills long ago, and I give her a Charlee Bear or a piece of kibble and she feels like there is balance in the universe once more.

They growl when they play, and they flash their teeth and they smack each other with their paws and they roll over and they curl their lips and I could watch this all day long.

In puppy class on Saturday, the teacher talked about a puppy's need for different kinds of chewing--tearing, gnawing and pulling. So on Sunday morning we went out and bought knuckle bones (for gnawing) and nylabones (ditto) and a couple of fleece toys (for tearing and disembowling, another requirement), and rope toys (for pulling) and now we are broke but they were busy all afternoon.

Our house is a total wreck, with puppy toys and shards of cardboard tubes and brown paper all over the floor, and our coats in haphazard piles in the kitchen, because we go out with Angus every half hour and what's the point in hanging things up?

But we don't mind the chaos. It means there are happy busy creatures here. Plenty of time to be tidy and quiet when we're old. Puppies keep you young.

Angus' grand day out

Angus, photographed by Leslie Plesser / Shuttersmack.

Angus' hind legs are slightly bowed, and when he walks, he struts. Doug says he swaggers like a Civil War general, and he has taken to calling him Angus S. Grant.

Yesterday morning (as you recall) began with Angus S. Grant full of piss and vinegar. In his first half-hour of being awake he ripped up some paper (authorized), peed in the bathroom (unauthorized) and knocked over Doug's morning glass of orange juice (absolutely unauthorized).

At ten we put his little red harness on him, stuffed him in the car crate (which he will be outgrowing all too soon) and drove four blocks to puppy class. Angus is now big enough to walk that distance, but geez Louise it was eleven below zero, so we drove. In the car, he is somewhere between Rosie and Riley. Rosie hops into her crate and is perfectly silent no matter how far we go or how many bumps we hit; she is content and there have been times when halfway up the Shore I have suddenly turned to peer into the crate just to make sure she is really still there.

Riley was terrified, for 16 years he was terrified, every time he went in the car. He stood and panted and could never relax.

Angus endures the crate but lets out little squeaks from time to time, just to let us know that he is not enjoying this.

It was a busy class--meeting other dogs nicely, practicing the name game, practicing sit, learning a new command (or trying to learn it): down, as in lie down, which at this moment he still does only randomly. But it's the long game.

For everything he does in class, he gets a treat: we had been using his kibble as treats, but this time we added Charlee Bears and some kind of soft thing that allegedly tastes like bacon. So he was full of food and starting to belch by the time we went home.

In early afternoon, back to the crate--time for the Leslie Plesser / Shuttersmack photo shoot!  Leslie is an old friend from Strib days; she left there about five years ago and started a photo business, which has quickly become very successful. One of her specialties is pet photography, and she had offered to photograph Angus for free because he is so adorable. (I assume that's why. Or maybe because we are friends.)

As we bounced along the potholed streets to Minneapolis, we heard little chirps and moans coming from Angus' crate and then, a mile or so from the Shuttersmack studio---there is no delicate way of saying this---a loud, thorough vomit sound, followed by a cartoon-like splat.

Stage mom me trying to get him to put his head on his paws.

Oh dear. Too many treats, too many potholes, too much in one day.

I worried that he was going to be hideous for the camera, but fortunately it wasn't Angus who took the brunt of the accident, but the blanket inside his crate. Ah, easily washable.

He recovered nicely, and as we walked up the sidewalk to the door of her studio, he had regained his strut.

A little smooch during the photo shoot.

For a half-hour, Leslie posed him--on a white shag rug (which he loved), on top of a white cube (which he was too afraid to jump off of), dangling from my hands (she wanted to get that swirly belly). It was so much fun, and he was completely relaxed. (She has had dogs all her life, and when I warned her that he's not yet housebroken, she just laughed. "If he pees, we'll clean it up," she said. That's the soul of a dog lover.)

Home again, and then an exhausted Angus went in his crate and slept for four hours. And I leashed up Miss Rosie, who needs her one-on-one time with us, and even though it was still one below zero, we walked and walked through the park. White snow, brilliant blue sky, no wind: a classic January day.

At night

In the morning Angus is well-rested and mellow. A good time for training (except for the fact that we are racing around like madmen, getting ready for work). He plays well, he sits nicely, he remembers not to bat at my hand when I offer him a treat (and when he does bat, I pull the treat away and we try again).

But at night--oh, at night, he is a monster, a creature, a wolverine!

When Rosie was a puppy she had long wolverine episodes, usually when she was over-tired or when she was in a growth spurt. Angus is nowhere near that frantic. (Plus, he's always in a growth spurt; his whole life is a growth spurt.) But he's been cooped up all damn day, except for a half-hour when the dog walker lets him out, and he's ready to rock and roll!

In the morning I can carry him around the house and he will lick my face, but at night he's just as likely to try to bite my ear. It's always alarming to be snuggling with the little furball and then have him rear back and I see his mouth, wide open, heading toward my face, all those little teeth sharp as tacks.

My goal is always to get the two dogs to play, and they did last night for a long time, Rosie with an orange tug toy in her mouth and Angus rolling around on the floor, exposing his beautiful pudgy marbled belly, both of them growling like a couple of wildebeests.

And then at 9:30 he races up the stairs with us, we toss some treats into his crate, sing, "Angus, go to bed!" and he goes to bed.

And now it is morning, and because he slept extremely well (up at 4:15 and then again at 6:30, what bliss of sleep), he is raring to go. It's like night Angus instead of day Angus!  He has already peed on the bathroom floor, knocked over Doug's orange juice onto the carpeting, and is currently destroying some papers, I don't know what papers, I don't even care at this point what papers.

Puppy class is in a few hours. Here's hoping it wears him out. I want my day Angus back.

Amazing and scary adventures in the life of Angus

Angus five minutes ago. "What did I do wrong this time?"

Some things that Angus has recently tried to eat:

a button
firewood
a lens cap
the plastic top to an orange-juice carton
a coaster (it was cardboard, so I just let him chew)
the bristles of my Russian broom
my Ugg boots (always)
the hem of my bathrobe
the hem of my coat
my hair
Rosie

Last night he picked up the remote and ran off with it; it was quite hilarious to see Doug chase him through the downstairs. Men do not like to lose control of the remote.

When I got home from work, it was snowing. So beautiful! When I came in from shoveling, I saw a remarkable sight: Angus leaping off the couch.

This is remarkable only in that the night before he was still too small to scramble up there. How did he do that? Oh yes, he is growing. I should weigh him again, but I am scared.

He is kind of a wimp about the cold, plus he wants to follow me everywhere, which is rather endearing, of course, reminiscent of my first dog, Toby, who adored me so much that one time at Ellen Akins' house in Cornucopia we were playing fetch and as Toby brought the tennis ball back to me he ran right into Ellen's picnic table, because he didn't see it, because he couldn't bear to take his eyes off me. That is a good dog.

Angus is not quite that good. But he's pretty good. Anyway, the dogs were out in the yard yesterday morning and, as always, I put the baby gate at the bottom of the porch stairs to keep them out there.

I went in the kitchen to start making my breakfast and the next thing I knew, there was Angus, wagging his little white-tipped tail at my side. How the heck? I went out and the baby gate was still in place, Rosie on the yard side of it, looking perplexed.

I put the squirming little Angus back out in the yard and then stood back to watch. He ran around to the side of the stairs, stood on his hind legs, and then squeezed between the banisters that support the railing. Pushed through, raced up the steps, wagged his white-tipped tail proudly.

Of course if he does this in another week or so, he is going to get stuck. Because, of course, he is growing. But the most amazing part of that adventure is this: The dog has problem-solving skills. The dog can do critical thinking. The dog could assess the situation, and figure out a solution.

At ten weeks old.

Now that is scary.

Please do not step on the puppy

Angus is great at getting up the stairs. But he cannot yet get down.

Oh, January thaw has been great. I am so sorry it's over.

Yesterday morning, a balmy 36 degrees (!!!), Rosie and Angus played in the back yard while I (a) made lunches; (b) put dinner in the crock pot; (c) took a shower. So easy! They played, they were safe, they entertained each other, and I was able to get things done without fear of stepping on a small fast-moving furry creature that seems happiest when he is right underneath my feet.

They had fun, they wore each other out (more or less--actually, less), and Angus learned that he can have fun and play without my taking part. (This is important. I like to play with him, but he needs to also play without me.)

Last night it was still warm and misting when Doug put them out at 9:30, and this morning: everything is coated in ice. We were supposed to get a half-foot of snow, but instead we got freezing rain that turned into a thick glaze. It is ugly, and dangerous. And we are now headed back into the deep freeze.

So the dogs are back to playing in the living room, and I am back to worrying about house peeing and stepping on the puppy.

The Angus in this picture is smaller than appears.

I took Angus and Rosie together on a leash walk the other evening, and while Rosie is beautifully trained and walks at my right side nicely, leash loose, doing everything right (unless she sees a rabbit), we haven't yet started that part of Angus' training (he's just little, he would like to remind you) and he darted all over the place even though I kept his leash as tight as I could. Behind me, in front of me, under me, off to the left, zip toward Rosie, zip back again. We only went about six blocks because I didn't trust myself not to crush him if we went any farther.

Puppy class no. 2 on Saturday, and then a photo session with Shuttersmack.

And then the following weekend I'm off to New York for a few days and Doug will be flying solo.  Pray for him.

Some things Angus does really, really well

We already know where Angus needs to improve: housebreaking (but he's still just little). Biting (that is, his bites are impressive--he needs to improve on not biting). Chewing (Bitter Apple helps, but it's temporary; we keep spraying the same things over and over: the edge of the dog bed; the leash; my hands and feet).

These are just normal puppy things, not really bad behaviors.

But there are some things that this sweet puppy does beautifully, and I have to be very conscious not to screw him up.

1. He comes immediately when called. This is not unusual for a little puppy; he hasn't yet learned free will. Rosie used to do this, too, and I remember the day when she suddenly realized that she didn't really have to come when I called her because whatever she was doing in the yard was much more interesting, and what was I going to do about it, anyway, given that she was on one side of the yard and I was on the porch steps? Good question.

In puppy class, they stress that you never call the dog repeatedly. Call his name once, and if he doesn't come then somehow make him come. (That's the vague part.) Calling, "Rosie, Rosie, Rosie!" which I did, which I sometimes still do, only reinforces that they don't have to come on the first call.

So for now, when Angus comes when I call, I praise him like crazy and give him treats. I don't want to screw up his beautiful recall.

2. He is trusting and loves us. This morning I came downstairs while he was eating his breakfast, and he actually left his food dish to run greet me, and then ran back to finish his kibble. I'm not sure how I could screw this up, but I'm sure I could in some way. Be ever vigilant! I tell myself.

3.  He is trusting and loves others.  He met another couple of neighbors yesterday, and the night before he met a neighbor with a big shaggy dog, and he hopped around and sat nicely and was delighted.  This is pretty normal for puppies; it is only when they get a little older that they start feeling a natural wariness of others. So we must continue to socialize him and have him meet people as much and as often as possible--not as easy in the winter, but we are doing our best. (Neighbors, if you read this, come meet Angus!)

4. He adores his crate.  We are lucky here; previous dogs did not feel this way. Boscoe screamed in his, even as a puppy, and Riley fought it every single time. Rosie loves her crate, too, and believe me it makes life so much easier. Angus is learning "go to bed!" and he is happy in there--a good thing, since he spends quite a bit of time in it. So we must not screw that up by forgetting the treats or the cheery tone of voice.

5. Napping. Yeah, he's a pro. But you know why. GROWING.

A year from now, we'll see how I did.

Crate train, weight gain

How's the crate-training going? I don't know. You tell me.

He is content in the crate. He has soft blankets, chew toys, water. He can hang out there pretty happily for a while.  (He's there right now.) We are trying to teach him the cheery "Angus, go to bed!" command that Rosie knows so well--she wheels around from whatever she's doing (even barking at the doorbell) to run inside her crate. We toss her a couple of Charlee Bears and she's happy.

Angus hasn't quite learned that command yet, so we sometimes have to stuff him inside the crate, saying cheerily over and over, "Go to bed!" while scattering treats galore. Trouble is, then Rosie also runs into her crate, and we have to toss some treats her way too.

Saying the name first doesn't seem to matter. She doesn't distinguish.

He keeps a dry kennel for several hours--yesterday I last let him out at 10 a.m. and the dogwalker came at 2, and all was well. That was a long time for him. (There was a snafu this week with the person who has been coming at 12:30. She'll be back next week.)

Overnight, he seems to need to go out fairly regularly at 1:30 a.m. and 3:30 a.m.  Yes, we are tired.

But--in the house? He shows no inclination whatsoever to go to the back door to be let out. When we say, "Do you want to go outside?" Rosie runs to the back door but Angus just keeps doing whatever he's doing. He's not that interested in outside.

He lets fly wherever he is playing--front hallway and living room being the prime spots. And he will let fly after peeing outside, so I don't think it's the old "puppies' bladders are tiny and they can't hold it."  Clearly, he can hold it. He just still doesn't understand that he's not supposed to do this.

Angus has adopted the Rosie philosophy that anything soft is automatically a dog bed.

Yesterday, he peed in the yard, and then I took him for a short walk and he peed again, and then we came home and, yes, he peed again. In the front hallway.

It's frustrating. Our house smells constantly of Odo-Ban. But he is only nine weeks old, and he's still adjusting to--well, to being alive, I think. I had to go back and look at what I had written when Rosie was a baby. I think it took about a month to six weeks to housebreak her, so Angus is not behind schedule. I think it's just that he's so big, he seems older than he is.

Which brings us to the other issue: Yes, he's growing. I weighed him yesterday and since Saturday he has gained another half-pound. Our boy is now fourteen pounds. How much longer will I be able to hold him like this?

Puppy energy might be the end of me

Authorized chew of wrapping paper tube in the basement.

This was Sunday morning:

5:45 a.m.: Angus wants out of his crate.  He wanted out at 1 a.m. and 2:30, too, and Doug took the early shift and I took the mid shift but both of us woke up both times and now that it is morning (more or less) I am playing possum, hoping that Doug will spring him and I can get a little more sleep.

5:50 a.m. Doug has taken the dogs out to pee, and now Angus has raced back up the stairs and is bouncing up and down at the side of my bed.  I haul him up into the bed and he grabs a hunk of my hair and wants to play tug.

6 a.m. I make coffee and take one sip before Angus starts sniffing in a way that might mean he needs to go back out.

6:01 a.m.  Ahhhhh it's above zero.

6:10 a.m. Back inside and down the basement, where Doug is reading the paper and there are authorized chew toys as well as rolls of brown paper that we have given up to the puppy. The puppy prefers to chew on the fringe of an afghan on the futon. It must remind him of my hair.

6:11 a.m. I take a second sip of coffee.

6:12 a.m.  Rosie is barking at the back door. No idea why; she's already been out, but I go back up the stairs, Angus at my heels, and open the back door.  Rosie races around and barks (sorry, neighbors) and Angus zooms across the yard, eats some sunflower husks that have fallen from the feeder, races back across the yard, find a crumpled dead leaf, zips back across the yard, grabs a stick.

6:15 a.m.  Third sip of coffee.

6:16 a.m. Angus somehow breaks out of the basement and I go back upstairs to see what he needs and, more importantly, to see if he's peeing.

6:17 a.m. Fourth sip of coffee interrupted by Angus chewing on the edge of the dog bed. The sainted dog bed where Riley died!  Has he no sense of history? Go find the Bitter Apple and give it a spray.

6:45 a.m. I cannot tell you what happened between 6:17 and now because I can't remember but trust me, I only got one or two more sips of coffee and almost no newspaper reading done. On account of puppy shenanigans, bringing Angus outside repeatedly, urging him to pee, but he does not pee.

6:50 a.m.  I feed the dogs.

6:55 a.m. I put Angus back out because sometimes he likes to do his business right after he eats. But not today. Instead, he zips across the yard, eats birdseed, finds a leaf, etc.

Totally fascinated by dead leaves.

7 a.m. Back in the house. Rosie has retreated to her crate. Angus positions himself in front of it and does the most adorable play bow ever.  Rosie just stares.

7:15 a.m. Angus suddenly and totally conks out.

7:16 a.m. I go make a fresh cup of coffee.

These times start out precisely right but the first two hours of the morning quickly became a blur. I was trying to keep a running schedule in my head as all of this was happening, but there was too much. By 8 a.m. I wanted a nap.

This morning--Monday--started the same: Angus wanted out at 5-something-or-other a.m., and Doug let him out. Then Angus raced up the stairs and hopped up and down at the side of the bed. I hauled him up into bed with me, fearing for my hair. But this time he snuggled into my arms, let out a tiny contented moan, and fell fast asleep.