Happy Birthday, Ferris!

Well, it’s just me and Ferris here for his big day. Two years old at last, which I suppose makes him no longer a puppy, technically. (At least, that’s what his dog food says, and who am I to challenge dog food?) How are we going to celebrate the big day? Well, I’m going to go and pick him up a new toy on my way home from work, and then I thought I’d give him something extra tasty for dinner. (For the first while of everyone being away, he went on a hunger strike. That only lasted two days, thankfully. Apparently his stomach won out in the end. He’s eating normally now.)

For all the excitement of the first while of having a puppy, he really is a marvelously well-behaved dog. I leave him at home with free rein of the house when I go to to work, and I come back to find him just patiently waiting for me. He doesn’t get into anything he shouldn’t. Doesn’t gnaw on things he’s not supposed to. Doesn’t (generally) bark for random reasons (or no reason at all). As long as we take him for a mile and a half walk each day, he’s pretty content.

There’s a time each evening around 7 when he gets pretty rambunctious, and it’s typically when we’re watching something as a family, but if I’ll just sit down on the floor with him, that usually makes him happy and quiets him down.

He’s got a number of quirks special just to him. For one thing, he adores vegetables. Every time Denisa is making dinner, chopping up cauliflower or lettuce or carrots or peppers, he comes running, then sits right by her side, ready to eat any of the scraps that might be left over. He really seems to love the crunchiness of it. He’s also a big fan of peanut butter, so we’ve finally figured out how to clean out the inside of the peanut butter jar: give it to Ferris. That provides him with at least a half hour of entertainment.

He gets scared easily by very random things. If someone blows their nose, he’ll head for the hills. Mainly it’s unfamiliar noises that send him for a loop. There’s a spot at the top of the stairs that he likes to retreat to for safety, and so if he gets frightened, that’s usually where you’ll find him. He also has a penchant for standing on stairs in a very awkward manner. He likes to have his hind legs on a higher step, so he can stand on his front legs and just look like he’s standing normally.

These days, he’s a wee bit less hyper when we have company over. It’s taking him a long time to get used to the idea that Other People can come into the house and not need to be jumped on and licked extensively. But we’re making progress there, at least. He would definitely be the world’s worst guard dog.

He used to like to rip apart any toy we got him, but he’s caught on to the fact that if he rips the toy up, he loses the toy, so these days he’ll happy just chew on it without tearing any heads off or stuffing out. He’s got a fox toy right now that squeaks when he bites it. I don’t know why we thought getting a squeaking toy was a good idea at all. But he seems to enjoy it.

He’ll be off to Dog Camp when I head out, and I expect he’ll pick up all sorts of bad habits, but that he’ll also have a grand time. In the meantime, I’ve got to go pick out a dog dessert for him to celebrate with this evening . . .

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