Tuesday, September 12, 2006

My Temporary Doggie

This is Jake, who is usually called Jakers.

He is my aunt's dog, and since she and her family are gone to Florida for the week, Tirithien and I have a temporary dog!

Now, Jakers has arthritis, but you sure wouldn't know it from the way he tears around when we take him out for walkies. Oh, no! When he's on his leash, Jake is a big strong moose of a dog who wants to run everywhere and smell everything. (Today I was thanking all that's holy that Jake does not chase squirrels, because they are everywhere! Can't you just picture this ginormous yellow lab chasing a squirrel, dragging along the poor broken armed girl behind him? Ow.)

But Jake is a very good doggie. He was apparently mistreated before my family got him-- very scrawny, very skittish. He still is terrified of loud noises and upraised arms, and he would never dream of getting on the furniture, even though we've tried to invite him up! He will not even touch food if I leave it lying on the table within easy reach. I've never known such a good doggie!


I actually kind of suspect that he might have flunked out of leader dog training at some point and then been given to the abusive people. He's just too well trained for that to have happened on accident.

As you can see, after we go for walkies, he is a very tired puppy. And he misses his mommy. But he seems to be enjoying himself here. He has especially attached himself to Tirithien and gets very excited when Tirithien comes home from school!

This was supposed to be an experiment to see if we could handle having a puppy of our own, but I don't think we'll be able to. If just having this wonderfully well-behaved dog around is wearing me out, what would a lesser dog do? And would I really want to take the dog out in the middle of the night in winter? No! So, alas, having a doggie of our own is going to have to wait until such time as we have a backyard. Too bad I'm allergic to cats, since they love being apartment pets. Oh well. Maybe it's time to look into getting another guinea pig. I miss having a furbaby of my own!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Puppy! Puppy puppy puppy puppy puppy puppy puppy puppy puppy puppy!

Martie said...

Most doggies don't need to go out in the middle of the night once they are fully housebroken....ours never does unless she hears someone up....then that's a different story. Really though, she mostly lies around sleeping unless one of us is outside and she is 4 now. She was never a lot of work anyway, but we got her when I was recovering from open heart surgery and I too thought it would be to exhausting but was pleasantly suprised to find out differently!!!!