An ordinary Saturday. And that is a joyous thing.

He's so big he barely fits in the dog bed anymore.

A gorgeous snowy day. Angus started it out by making sure that I don't get too cocky about his progress: After several days of sleeping through the night, he needed to go out at 2 a.m. And after going out again at 5 and 5:30 and 6, he peed in the living room.

OK, then! I have been put in my place!  But after that everything got better.

We all went for a lovely walk through the woods behind the Joyce Kilmer fireplace in the park. Angus had never been there, and he sniffed and peed and tromped through the snow and pulled like crazy. He's gotten so strong! (Later we weighed him and he has gained 2.5 pounds this week. Yikes! He's 20 pounds now.)

He pulled so hard I wondered if it was time for leash training, though he seems pretty young for it. He's just barely three months. Will my shoulder hold out?

Angus pulls as hard as he can but cannot get traction in the snow.

When we got home he got stuck, as usual, on the second floor. He loves racing up those stairs but he refuses to come down them; they are much longer and steeper than any other staircase in our house.

He sat at the top, nervously putting his paws on the first step and then backing up. Rosie finally ran up and sat beside him and showed him how to do it. It was lovely to watch: She put her paws on the first step and looked at Angus and then came down a few steps and looked back.

He watched her, and he made movements to follow, but he just couldn't do it.

Doug worked with him a long time, dropping treats on the steps and talking to him, and finally Angus did it--he came all the way down the stairs on his own. I am not sure he will do it again any time soon, though. He did not seem confident.

No rush. In a way it's useful to have him trapped up there from time to time.

By then, Angus was ready for a nap, but heck no! Time for puppy class!

We cannot pet Angus until he realizes he is supposed to sit. But first, the lunge.

The class has dwindled in size since the first week and there were only five puppies for the last class--the two Ziggys, the perfectly behaved and very large Everest, zippy little Hazel, and Angus.

It was a fun class, and at one point the teacher talked about what comes next now that puppy class is over. Continue to socialize them, she stressed; it will make a huge difference in their lives. She also recommended leash training, but not yet--let them explore, she said. So what if they pull. Let them get out there and sniff the world and be excited about it and in a month or two we can teach them how to walk next to us like civilized dogs.

I loved that idea--that dogs should be allowed to be dogs for a while, and I am sure my shoulder will hold up, though if Angus continues to grow at the rate he is growing I will not be able to walk both dogs together by myself for much longer.

(Note to self: Calm down! He's only 20 pounds.)

Even though I have my hand turned incorrectly for the command, Angus executes a beautiful down stay.

In the late afternoon we walked around the lake--another first for Angus; he's been down to the lake many times but this was his first circumnavigation. It was still snowing--it had been snowing all day--and we stopped everyone we met and asked them if they wanted to pet a puppy. And who could say no to that?

Angus is formally introduced to our neighbor, Andy.

Could this be possible?

"OK, I'll chew this authorized knuckle bone, but when you are not looking it's back to your Ugg boots."

Might Angus be housebroken? I am afraid to type those words in case of jinxing things. And it is true that when we are around and he is loose in the house we are careful to put him outside every half-hour, so we aren't giving him a chance to screw up. When we put him out, he always pees (though sometimes, I swear, he just squeezes out a couple of drops so that I'll let him back in the house).

He slept last night from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. with only one little chirp (and those chirps wake me instantly). So clearly his innards are 99 percent bladder, 1 percent everything else. Good dog!

He has not had an accident in the house all week.

Shhhhhhhhh do not say this out loud.

Still and all, I am hoping it is true. And I am now turning my attention to one more thing: his damn chewing. Please stop biting so much, little guy!  He chews pillows and rugs and blankets (especially down duvets) and any piece of me or my clothes that he can get those mandibles of death near.  I am going through the Bitter Apple at a tremendous rate. (Buy stock.)

He's pretty good about being redirected--I unhook the blanket from his sharp little teeth (and when are those going to fall out, anyway?) and stuff a puffy toy in there instead. When he's chewing on a rug, I give him a rope tug toy.

But some days he simply will not be redirected. This pair of Ugg boots is exactly what I want right now! he says. And even though we have been taught by the puppy teacher not to chase the dog when it has contraband because the dog will think it's a game, when the dog has your Ugg boot in its mouth, you chase. You do.

Saturday morning will be his last puppy class. I want to get him a little mortarboard but Doug says--well, Doug doesn't say anything, just gives me that look.

A few firsts on the First

"Ugg--my favorite flavor!"

The temperature was five below zero this morning, Feb. 1, and I did not walk the dogs. I felt guilty--there was a time when our dogs got morning walks and evening walks every single day, no matter the weather. Hot, frigid, torrents of rain, we suited up and marched around the neighborhood.

I remember once walking Toby and Boscoe when it was twenty below zero--we were just going around the block, not far, they didn't mind, and I didn't either, really--when a car pulled up and the driver rolled down the window and said, in a highly disapproving voice, "What are you doing?"

But Toby was from Duluth and he didn't mind the cold, and Boscoe had a great thick border collie coat, and he didn't mind the cold either.

Toby (right) and Boscoe, the world's best dogs.

Rosie minds the cold.  So does Angus.  So this morning they raced around the back yard and then they had their usual midday entertainment of the high school girl, followed, a couple of hours later, by the dogwalker, and they will not get fat or grow lazy if they miss a walk or two.

Although I might.

Right now it is one above zero. Angus and Rosie are wrassling like mad in the living room, kind of silently going at it, some heavy breathing, a few grunts, like a couple of Romanian weightlifters. They're getting a good workout, I think.  I might not walk them tonight either.

So I promised you a couple of firsts.

1. Angus ran into his crate today when I called, "Angus, go to bed!" He didn't wait for me to toss in the shower of treats. He just ran in, turned around, and sat. And boy, did he get the treats then! (i.e., kibble, since he remains on a restricted diet.)

2.

Yep, he can get on and off the couch now with ease. Last night, I had to haul him up there. This morning, I looked over and saw him lying on the blanket, chewing happily on the edge of one of the throw pillows

Can braving the steep main staircase be far behind?

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.