Puppy Love II

Eventually I will find something serious to write about on here again, but for right now, you are all being treated to an update on my puppy.

Alex is now two and a half months old, and he is growing like a weed. The last time I weighed him (last Thursday) he was 7.4 pounds, almost double what he'd weighed the week before. I'm sure he's at least 10 pounds now. I think he's going to get bigger than the 30 pounds the rescue group folks predicted, but not a lot bigger.

Alex and Winnie get along fantastically. She's very maternal with him, and he likes to imitate her actions. And he's continuing to confirm my initial assertion that he's incredibly smart--he already knows how to sit and come when called, and I'm working on teaching him to ring a little bell by the door when he has to go out. I'm not going to brag, because Randi assures me that will curse me to a bad day of housebreaking, but he has got the idea behind the bell figured out already, though he doesn't ring it every time.

It's really strange--I've had dogs before, but they were always family dogs. Though there was one that I did 95 percent of the training with, I've never had a dog that was just mine and I solely responsible for before. I can't believe how attached I've become. At first it was hard not to be really protective of him--he was so small, I was worried that Winnie would accidentally hurt him while they were playing, or that Randi or I would step on him. It didn't take long to see that he's a pretty rough and tumble pooch (as Randi puts it, "he's from the streets"), so I don't worry so much now. He knocks his head on something and just keep going. It's kind of neat to see him growing up, learning new things, and gaining some independence.

But while I'm not as overprotective now, I am still soooo attached. Sometimes he looks at you with this quizzical expression and just cocks his head, and it just kills me. He's got so much personality. He finally started to "smile" a couple weeks ago (I think it takes puppies a little to develop the doggie "smile"), and now he smiles like crazy, especially when he's outside. I love seeing him smile, because I know he's happy and content, which makes me feel good about adopting him, especially knowing that he had kind of a rough start to life.

Oh, and for those of you who know Randi and I were temporarily a three-dog household (a Lab mix who was obviously someone's pet but had no tags wandered to our door last Sunday), we found Heather's family. We had planned to take her to a rescue shelter last night, because Randi and I are going to Randi's parents house in Durham this weekend and couldn't take her with us. But Randi got a call on her way home from work from someone who saw the "Found" ad she put in the paper, and it was her family. Her real name is Sophie, and she seemed very happy to be reunited.