Monday, April 10, 2006

Please welcome...

Stuart.Here, Stuart settles in on his first night with a comforting rawhide treat and the Saturday newspaper. It was a tough day for him: he woke up on the farm, surrounded by relatives (his Mum, a bunch of young cousins, several other close family friends) and his original human family, and then found himself in the backseat of a strange car with two women he'd never met, driving an hour and a half to a new and strange house with one of the women. (The crazier one, too, worst luck.) If it had happened to me, I too would've whizzed all over the house the first night.

Day 2 was better: Stuart mastered the stairs to the backyard, tolerated my going into the bathroom and shutting the door (with him on the wrong side), and learned about his "leash" and "going for a walk," both of which still seem overrated, in his well-mannered opinion. There was a small upset when I had the nerve to run down the block to pick up a couple of things at the store without him, but tomorrow we'll do some work on Being Alone. Hell, I had to learn it in grad school, and it took me more than 48 hours.

Day 3 (today) we had new victories: Stuart learned to ring a bell when he wants to go out (still blows my mind), went down the stairs all by himself, met the neighbours on both sides, and took three forms of public transit. We're both exhausted, but it's been a good third day. And Stuart is in good spirits: I was just on the phone with my Dad, and he started to chase his tail. Stuart did, that is. Must try to catch that on film.

Tomorrow, we're going to take it easy. I've ordered internet groceries (can't leave him alone yet; can't take him into a grocery store) and included in the order is a big package of hot dogs, which I'll slice into pennies and give him for treats when we do a little training. And we might try to make it down to High Park, where there'll be no scary traffic and lots of other dogs to hang out with.

Limited knitting going on...I did go back and fix the heel on sock #1 (will need to knit like lightning to get the pair finished for May 2) and I've been working a bit on the cotton T-shirt. But most of the time I'm absorbed with the young furball.

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