Day of the Monkey

I post this with full knowledge that it may be a case of a proud parent thinking their child or pet is the cutest, smartest and best looking ball of adorableness on the planet when in reality it more resembles a clumsy ape than the Gerber baby. However, I am going to proceed with complete belief that Sprocket is the most precious puppy in the history of the world.

With a bladder the size of a walnut, Sprocket must be taken out every few hours to relieve himself and keep me from scrubbing pee out of the carpets. This works just fine during the day, but at night it is rough because my little puppy experiences an out of body experience when woken up from a deep sleep. In a zombie haze it takes him approximately five minutes to recognize a) that he is, in fact, a dog, and b) who we are and why we are waking him up and dragging him outside. He walks around in a daze, stumbling like a drunkard and running into walls on the way from his kennel to the sliding glass door. Sometimes I can scoop him up, carry him outside, and place him in the grass, and sometimes he seems intent to do it on his own.

This morning around five I got up and stirred him enough to wake him up and coax him out of his kennel, and I walked to the living room to open the door for him. Several minutes later he toppled into the dining room, lopsided from dragging something with him and sideswiping several walls on the way due to walking with his eyes closed. Squinting in the darkness I realized he was bringing his good friend Monkey out to go potty with him.

Since he is, by all intents and purposes, housetrained and a strictly indoor dog he knows what he has to do when he goes outside and I can only assume that he figured Monkey had been cooped up all night too and needed relief. He tottered to the door and marched outside, dragging Monkey along with him across the cement, down the stone pathway, and into the damp grass. He gingerly placed Monkey down in the grass, walked a few feet away to do his business, and then stared at Monkey for a few seconds, yawning, as if he was politely giving Monkey space and time. He then glanced at me, waiting for his pat on the head and "Good Boy!" that is part of his positive reinforcement, received it, and scooped Monkey back up and escorted him down the pathway, into the house and into the kennel where they curled up together and went back to sleep.

All of this took about five minutes and I am convinced none of it was conscious on his part.

Other than managing his cuteness, our little guy has had a busy time of it the last few weeks. Since getting him three weeks ago, he has made four trips to the vet, only to learn that he has two internal parasites, Giardia and Coccidia, common to puppies who are raised in, ahem, not so sanitary environments. We don't fault the rescue association from which we acquired him as I think they do the best they can as a non-profit, and as he resided before that at the county animal shelter there is no way of knowing where he picked up the bugs. We think he is on the up-and-up thanks to his medicine although it causes him to vomit so it is hard to tell. He's the first puppy we've seen who doesn't like to eat, so it has been quite a challenge to doctor up his food with gourmet treats to get him to devour it, and between his anorexia and gut bugs he's on the smaller side of the size range for his age and we're busy trying to fatten him up. I feel like the witch in the Hansel and Gretel fable as I squeeze his belly and weigh him on a daily basis trying to gauge whether or not he is putting on the weight, and resist the urge to slather his milk bones in butter. He may have to go stay with his deep fried grandparents in the south for a month or two if we can't get him a little chunkier.

Until then, we're thinking of making him a puppy runway model.