We Welcome The Puppy
Yesterday, I drove a three-and-a-half hour round trip to pick up The Puppy.
We were supposed to pick him up on Sunday, but the lady who does the paper work wasn’t available then, and it was a bit far for me to pop up just to sign some forms and hand over some money. We thought about going today (Saturday), but we have a rather tight activity and party schedule and there simply wasn’t enough time to drive up. And then DH said he’d work from home and do DS’s school run yesterday, so I considered taking the opportunity to race up and get him.
I had promised DD1 that I’d take her on the puppy collecting mission, so anticipated she would be upset, but I couldn’t see anyway around it. So off I went.
The plan was to leave at 12 ish, fill out forms and pay money at around 1:30pm, pick up The Puppy at 2 ish, and try and be back before the school run was over at 3:30pm. Of course I ended up running late, and by the time I got home, everyone was already in the house.
The Puppy had been very good in the car, considering he’d just been whisked away from everything he had ever known. I had him in a secured crate so he could look out the window, and he did this for a bit while crying, then just flopped and was quiet. And he didn’t wee or poo in the crate. When we got home, I quietly took him into the garden to see if he wanted to ‘go’ but was waylaid by DD1 who was coming home from cross-country, so we took him out together.
After 10 minutes of The Puppy pootling around the garden happily ( I’m not sure he’d never seen grass before), we let The Lurcher out to say hello. The Puppy took one look at her, decided she was a mother substitute and ran up for a drink. The Lurcher was horrified, she doesn’t believe in breast feeding, and spent the next couple of hours alternately running away from, and bravely sniffing the butt of, The Puppy.
Eventually we got around to calling the other kids out, and this is what happened when they all realised their new family member had arrived.
The Puppy is now curled up asleep in his crate. He’s had a busy morning, running around after the kids, finding out what he’s not allowed to chew on, eating his breakfast and pooing and weeing all over the place. We’re about even on the toileting success front so far. He seems to have some idea of what he’s meant to be doing, but wants to use concrete when we want him to use grass.
Last night I ended up ‘sleeping’ on the lounge floor, next to his crate, so he didn’t feel completely abandoned. I’m feeling a bit worse for wear.
The kids are being very helpful, but it’s early days yet and I’m not kidding myself that their enthusiasm is going to last. This puppy is going to end up as my responsibility and no one else’s.
I do feel an awful lot like a new mum though; sleep deprived and up to my elbows in poo. But at least with a pup, at the end of the day you can use a crate to contain them. If you trying doing that with a baby, Social Services would be on your doorstep.
You’re going to be like me and The Baby, aren’t you? Still calling him The Puppy when he’s 10 years old
I was thinking about this before. I might swap his name to The Mutt, when he reaches 12 months.
He is a cutey! Must be a lot of fun having a puppy again, I still think having a puppy was harder than a newborn, at least with a newborn they have a nappy on and can’t move!
You are right! At the moment, his favourite game is hurling himself at the kids ankles like some sort of landshark.