This is the weather that to me, is the trademark of November: cold, gray, drizzly. Dark mornings, dark late afternoons. What's there to like?
Well just ask Henry! He wakes at 5:30. I tell him he is a nice doggy BUT, we are not done with the night. He returns to his bed for another hour and tries again. Good boy, Henry! Let's get going!
It's not raincoat weather but everything is indeed wet. Henry doesn't mind. Happy to be out, happy to be sniffing, happy to be listening hard.
Do all dogs listen as much as he does? My pup will frequently pause and just listen, perhaps attempting to decipher sounds I myself could not possibly hear. This is when I can use my camera with him. I just wait for my pooch to go Zen on me.
We're back. He waits for me to do my morning routines and then we eat breakfast. He gobbles his before I even take all the fruits out of the fridge.
Of course he chooses his squeakiest toy to play with. Henry, some people in the building aren't up at 7:15! Maybe you should tone it down a bit? I say this affectionately. I don't really want him to tone it down. The walls are thick. My pup is exuberant. We are in a warm, cozy home. Lights are on, dispelling any thoughts of that dark, gray, drizzly day. I catch the headlines but then quickly switch to music. How about Joyful Classical?
And yes, we practice training. He's good at sitting on command, he's great even at staying. But "touch" was a new one for us. I concentrate on that. The goal is to have him come over and touch my hand with his nose. Not in search of treats, though he is amply rewarded when he scores a hit. The point is to get him to follow my hand when I ask him to do so.
He remembers none of it. His eyes are on the treat bag. Eyes on me, Henry. Okay, he knows that one. But his nose is far from my hand. Touch doesn't happen.
We start again. From scratch.
(shouldn't we do couch time instead?)
In the late morning, Henry is back at doggie daycare. That's great. I would not enjoy a dog park romp. And those muddy paws! How do you wipe down a dog after a walk in wet dirt? Best leave that worry to the daycare people.
I have one of those routine appointments one tends to have at my age (a scrape of the face if you must know) and because it is in the early afternoon, I cannot pick up Sparrow. The idea is for me to go from the doc's office to his home and from there we will drive over to pick up his sister. That's the plan. I see that I have time after the appointment to pick a box of free dog foods at Mounds Food Store. They offer these to dog owners who adopted rescue dogs. (A marketing ploy if I ever saw one, since they know people who love their dogs will I never leave a pet store without adding things to the basket. This time I add more treats (training requires a LOT of treats) and also toothpaste. $12 for the toothpaste. Chicken flavored. The clinic suggested it. I tut-tut-tutted that one at check out, but I think the clerk was not paying attention to my tuts. I guess if you see a shopper with blood flowing down her cheek, you'd be a bit distracted by it. I put my dirty hand to my wound to stem the flow wipe my hand on my sweatpants, pay quickly and make my way back to the clinic.
Amazingly, I still made it in time to pick up Sparrow and we aren't even late for picking up Snowdrop. She had a bit of Middle School girl drama, and Sparrow, too has his troubles, and of course, I've been rushing back and forth and I do so hate rushing. And there's the weather! It's rare that the three of us are all in a funk. I think we need a treat. We go to Clasen's Bakery.
It's not yet time for their big gingerbread house to be open for business. That's fine -- we are not yet fully in the Christmas season after all. But I need to stock up on cookies while Henry is at daycare, and I suggest that the kids pick up a treat for today, a treat of their choice
I should have learned by now not to give an open-ended invitation to pick whatever they want. Because they cant decide. And pick things that are actually many treats wrapped into one package. And so the negotiations begin.
But it's worth it. I'm stocked up on cookies. They're stocked up on sugar.
In the evening we pick up Henry.
Hey, my darling dog, should we practice touch? Don't look so puzzled. We'll start at the beginning...
with so much love...
