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| Domestic Goddess Ina Garten Watches Over You |
I haven’t posted on the new pup in a while, mostly because I’ve been too busy trying to keep track of a playful, active five-month-old puppy. Christ but it’s exhausting.
Riley has every bad habit known to dogs. He eats poop, has dug pits in our front yard, chewed the shit out of the shrubbery, and has gnawed the leg of our antique dining room table, a fucking family heirloom!, to the size of a toothpick. He humps the dog beds and pulls like a John Deere tractor on the leash. He’s an escape artist who has figured out how to get out of our fenced yard not once but twice.
This is all part and parcel with being a puppy, which is precisely why I’ve avoided puppydom all these years. I mean cripes, if I’m going to devote my entire day to a young animal I would have had kids.
Le Sigh.
Anyway, he’s also cute as a button. Just when I’m at the end of my rope he does something that makes you laugh or reminds you that yes he will grow up, some day. He and Chaka are major playmates -- they play so hard sometimes, I wonder if they’re really playing. Even Cleo, my elderly, arthritic Ridgeback/Lab mix, got into the action a few times.
And he’s smart as the dickens. Training is going well; he’s learned to “drop it” when he grabs my gardening glove and prances around the front yard showing off for the other dogs. He’s sweet and gentle and gets along well with everyone at doggie daycare.
And I’ve realized that Riley is a lot like my dearly departed Zelda. So much alike, actually, that it’s scary. I had always thought Zelda was some mutt mash-up of Lab, beagle, and who knows what else. But I realize now she probably had a lot of Pibble in her. Zelda and Riley are so alike in so many ways, and Zelda was so devoted to me, that I’m starting to wonder if reincarnation isn’t for real and Zelda hasn’t found her way back to me.
Do you think that’s possible? For an animal to come back from the other side? It’s an interesting thought.
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| Chase! And Chaka is the rabbit! |
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| It's Play Time! (Honest) |
