Life with Ferris

It’s been a bit since I gave a dog update, which actually shows how smoothly things have been going with the little bounder. It’s definitely still been a learning curve figuring out how he fits into the family and how to make sure his needs are being met, but it’s been a fun learning curve (for the most part). I thought I’d take a minute to jot down some observations I’ve had about him from the last while.

• He’s learned that human food is generally preferable to dog food, and that we often have human food just sitting on the kitchen island, unattended and free for the taking, if he can just reach it. On Sunday Daniela and I were making sugar cookies, and we set out four sticks of butter on the island to come to room temperature. They were not close to the edge, but they definitely weren’t in the middle of the island, either. When the time came to make the cookies, only three sticks of butter were left. Either we both totally spaced it and just put out three sticks in the first place, or we have a grade A butter thief in the house. Seeing as how we all remembered putting out four sticks, my vote is for the butter thief. Ferris has a really good innocent face, however. Whoever took the butter, they made it disappear completely. No wrapper. No buttery smears anymore. My bet is a certain golden retriever put his paws up on the counter and snagged a stick, wolfing it down in one gulp, wrapper and all. The good news is it didn’t give him any indigestion, at least.
• A tired Ferris is a happy Ferris. As long as he gets a good walk in, he’s usually fine for the day. Luckily, our kids have picked up running as a hobby. Denisa has also started taking him for runs. If nothing else, having a dog has increased the activity levels around our house.
• Despite his love of activity, he’s also gotten much better and just lazing around the house. He’ll happily sit in his cage (with the door open) for hours at a time, though he sometimes prefers his dog bed out in the open. In his ideal world, he’d crawl under the futon in the study and stay there for most of the time. It was easier for him to do that when he was a real puppy. These days he still tries, but he often gets stuck. “E” for effort, though.
• He is definitely fond of routines. When we got all the kitchen cabinet boxes, it totally weirded him out. He’s very confused by this whole kitchen renovation, and I think he’s wondering why in the world we thought this was a good idea. (It has officially stated, by the way. Our old counters and cabinets are being dismantled even as I write this. There’s no going back now . . . ) I don’t know what we’re going to do with him while the renovation is going on. It’s going to change his current room where he sleeps. The puppers is going to have to figure out a new routine, poor thing.
• Like with most dogs, he has a mysterious attraction to very odd things. He likes to eat poop and cigarette butts and rocks, and it takes a keen eye to make sure he’s not eating any one of those three times at any point on our walks. If you blink, he’ll be rolling in something vile, as well. There have been more than a few emergency dog washes.
• He’s terrified of fly swatters, or anything that he doesn’t recognize in someone’s hands. I have no idea why. We haven’t hit him with a fly swatter (or anything else, for that matter), but if he sees you pick one up, he heads for the hills.
• He still gets the random zooms. He’ll just run and run and run and run. It’s best to sit back and let him get them all out, when that happens.
• He sleeps from around 8:30pm to 8:00am each day. He’s a good sleeper.
• He’s not a fan of us watching television, but if we’ll sit with him and play with his rope or pet him, then he’ll usually be okay with it.
• He still views MC as an equal, and one of his favorite hobbies is antagonizing her, probably because it gets him so much attention. That said, she loves the dog, so it all works out.
• He’s generally the best behaved for Daniela, probably because she’s so likely to give him treats. He will do pretty much anything in the world as long as you have a dog treat in your hand. If you don’t . . .

Overall, he’s an energetic, playful dog. Sometimes a bit much energy, but overall a good fit for out family.

Now if he’s only leave the cigarette butts alone . . .

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