Day three. New Year's Day.

Angus is in his crate. He slept well overnight, thank God--went out at 11:30 p.m. (and we heard a gunshot, which sent Rosie zipping back into the house--it was, after all, New Year's Eve), at 2 a.m., and then not again until 5:30 a.m.  Blissful sleep!

He is adorable, chubby, sweet. He loves to be held and last night he dozed on my chest as the fire in the fireplace burned down, and then this morning he dozed on the bed, which is too high for him to jump off of. I gave him one of Rosie's abandoned elk antlers, and he chewed that a little, but he also likes chewing blankets, my hair, my hands, and my sleeves.  Oh, puppies.

He is in his crate right now because I keep bringing him outside and he does not pee, just looks around at the hard frozen snow, finds a branch or a twig or a dried leaf to chew, sits down, look cold and miserable.  So back to the crate. Once he pees outside, he can be free to play. But not before.

I am a hard, hard mother.

Yesterday we played a little tennis ball in the house while Rosie was out back barking at squirrels. He's good!  He's Tobyesque!  Chases it happily, brings it back.  I need to teach him DROP and COME and, of course, ANGUS, but I will be thrilled to have another tennis-ball obsessed coca-cola faced pup.

He is at that phase of his life where he is obsessed with tiny things he sees on the floor. Bits of dust. Tiny shards of firewood. Yesterday he ate a white feather that came out of the couch cushion (which has been smashed flat over the years by Rosie.)

He is very sweet, content, for the most part, to rest in our arms, which is quite unlike Wolverine Rosie and quite unlike uncomfortable-in-his-own-skin Riley. He sleeps a lot. I feel terrible that soon he'll be in the crate for hours and hours a day, but there's nothing that can be done about that.  We have hired the high school girl across the street to come every day around 12:30 to let him out, and then Mary the dogwalker will come at 3 p.m.  But after she leaves it will be a good four hours before we are home from work.

Little Angus, reality hits soon.