A Terrible Teen
I saw Eric the trainer today with Rufus. It occurred in the afternoon of an already stressful dog day. The day began when Rufus began his wake up ritual, and…
A few resolutions
Rufus will be trained. Rufus will get to a place where he is less afraid of others Rufus and I will be able to run a few miles together without being goofy…
The Quick Death of Toys
Toys don’t last long with Rufus. He destroys them in under twenty minutes. Mr. Dinosaur experienced this in about ten minutes of his relationship with Rufus. First a…
The Dog Park issue
Rufus is a year old. He has a ton of energy. I know that. I get that. And he doesn’t start fights. He barks at strangers as well as those…
Hot lava floor
The dogs love playing hot lava floor in the sense that they’ll sleep on anything but the floor. Usually if I’m in my favorite reading chair upstairs with the ottoman,…
The Battle of Heat Vent Alley
When Sophie and Rufus are outside in subzero weather, they run around as if the temperature were nothing. It’s pretty impressive. But once they return to the house they…
We made it
Christmas is over, and Rufus survived boarding. He did it one previous time back in October for two nights but I was closer, in Colorado Springs. This time I was…
One
The puppy is one year old. This should be a seminal date in his maturation process. But he’s a puppy with a puppy brain so of course it means nothing…
Exquisite corpse of an orange thing
What is this? This orange thing in the foreground is a thing that Rufus chewed. I *think* it might have been a part of a broom that he took apart…
Gross carpet stain
When I tried cleaning Rufus’ pee stain on the carpet I think I mis-used the Bac-Out by Biokleen. The directions say to saturate the stain with this, and instead I…
Free to be you and me, at three
At three a.m. Rufus vomited up the part of the towel and soft glasses case he managed to chew while crated. I was at a production of Hedwig and the…
Chew on this
This is a growing list I started in May of the chew damage done by the adorable shithead doodle bug, some of it occurring directly in front of me. The computer…
I always tell him he’d look good in anything
It’s less than fifteen degrees out, and the doodle-bug is having a blast running around the back yard, coat-free. I think I’ll take his respectable Republican cloth coat back to the…
Animal Control
In that first week, I posted Rufus’ picture on my neighborhood Facebook page and checked in with local shelters. I also looked around for “lost animal” notices pinned to trees…
The first night, part 2
Jumping back to April… The crate was not working that first night since Mr Whiny Pants (not his real name) didn’t like it, and I needed to get some sleep.…
The Rufus Files 