3/3/2011 - the uncool ones. . .

Truthfully, I have been a little annoyed with Grr the last few days.  I guess you can say that the honeymoon phase is effectively over.  Between the fiasco on Tuesday, my lack of sleep due to his night-time bathroom habits, and his newfound interest in nipping at any exposed flappy-looking thing (whether it be a finger or toe, a dangling plant leaf or corners of papers or tags from pillows), I regularly find myself staring off, zoning out, and missing my life.  You know, the one where I do more than go to work, work on this blog, and entertain him so he doesn't destroy the house.

(On a related note, I think we have decided two things about his name: 1) Grr is it, and 2) it is now unofficially short for Freddy Krueger, the unholiest of nightmares.)

(Oh, and on another related note, Sam has become the ultimate permissive parent, and now Grr climbs into bed with us in the mornings.  The other morning, when I was already dreading the prospect of waking, he slept with his front feet at my sides while dreaming of digging holes or chasing after rabbits, something that caused him to involuntarily kick me regularly for the better part of the hour of sleep I had left.  Nightmare, indeed.)

In an effort to curb his bad behaviors, we thought it best to simply tire him out at the park, so we took him on Tuesday night after work and let him run around and play with other dogs.  At first, he was very shy, not wanting to do anything more than sniff around and stand still.  Soon, a friendly golden lab came around and started chasing after a ball.  And then various other dogs began chasing after the same ball.  Grr ran alongside them, but had no interest in the ball itself, much like how he was with Elliot when we were at my parents' house.  But seeing him run around the periphery of so many other dogs yet not getting into the middle of the group made me feel a little bad for him.  He was like the uncool kid who stood on the outskirts of the inner circle, laughing when they laughed but not really knowing why.

Still, I'm pretty sure Grr had a great time.

But then it rained yesterday, and we could not take him anywhere but the garage downstairs, and all of a sudden, Sam and I became the uncool ones.  We would run from wall to wall in an effort to get Grr to chase us, but he was having none of us.  We'd throw a ball, and Grr would barely give it a second glance, even after we ended up fetching it for him.  It was as if he was saying, "Ugh, I hope the other dogs don't see me with my dads."

Luckily, the sun came back out today and the temperature warmed up.  We took Grr back out to the same park, and the nonchalant, apathetic puppy from yesterday was completely gone, replaced with an active, playful, and completely independent one.  It's strange, actually.  Just the other day, I told Sam that one advantage of raising puppies is that, unlike children, they probably won't grow up to have an 8-year phase where they hate you and want nothing to do with you (but everything to do with your wallet).  Yet there we were, standing in the park while our little pup barely even remembered to look back at us.

But somewhere inside, I felt really good about that.  I know that my less-than-enthused attitude about him lately is only a factor of my fatigue, my aching desire to sleep from one end of the night to the other (just one night).  Watching him be brave with other dogs made my feel like a proud dad, seeing his boy go off on his own, making his own friends and way in the world.

And what a way he was making.  While playing, he body-checked a little chihuahua mix, stole a toy from a shiba inu, and generally acted more like a cock of the walk than the scared puppy we still have to carry down the stairs at home in order to get him to go outside.  But I kept that to myself; I wasn't about to embarass him in front of his new friends.