Andrea’s Weblog

I have no idea what I’m in store for, but last weekend I consented to
getting a new puppy. We had planned on getting a dog when Elizabeth
could help take care of him, but it didn’t turn out that way. Our
friends bred their standard poodles and had a cute litter of 10 week
old puppies. They planned on breeding them again, but we found out on
Saturday that the plan had changed; this will be their only litter.
Frank was all for adopting one.

I don’t think I would trust very many people to pick out a dog for us,
but Wayne and Patti told us that Red would be a great dog for us.
Poodles don’t shed and they’re very smart. Timing was on Frank’s side
because our neighbor had an attempted burglary (most likely teenagers
picking on their daughter) the other day, so I was already thinking
about how nice it would be to have a dog someday. We went over to meet
the little guy and the next day we brought him home.

Needless to say, my routine has completely changed- again. I had no
idea that he wouldn’t know how to walk on a leash and wouldn’t bound
out of the house as soon as the door opened. I spent the first day
trying to figure out how to carry the baby and the dog out of the house
so neither one would get in trouble as I turned my back to fetch the
other one. I’m glad nobody was filming this calamity. Fortunately, he
is a fast learner and doesn’t need to be carried anymore. Our cats are
lucky because he is strangely calm and has spent most of the day today
resting by the front door. So far, he seems to be tolerated by the
cats, but not accepted.

Finlay and Elizabeth get along great. He has really taken to her and
would love nothing more for her to slow down enough so he could take a
nap with her. He loves to give her kisses and even licked the snot off
her nose. How sweet. He really enjoyed licking her little pony tail
yesterday. She doesn’t seem to care and just crawls away when he gets
to stifling. He has only barked once or twice which startled all of us
and I’ve only had to clean up one accident and we just started house
training him. So far so good!