As I mentioned in yesterday’s comments, I brought Rufus to my office yesterday. This was stupid, because the dog’s probably going through sensory overload already, and he found himself getting showered with affection by 20 or 30 new people. But he was a trooper, till he got vaguely unsettled in the afternoon and refused to lie down.
Before that occurred, he was utterly sacked out on the floor of my office. In fact, he was so zonked, he did one of those dog-flips in his sleep, and wound up like this:
He stayed in this position for quite a while. I eventually took pity on him and rolled him back over.
During the day, I took him for some exercise in the office parking lot. At one point, I decided to graduate from a light jog into a faster pace, to see what he’d do (I had his leash firmly around my wrist and in my grasp). It only took a few steps before he switched from a trot into a gallop, with both front paws striking the ground at the same time. I decided this could lead to a dangerous outburst, so I downshifted and he immediately slowed up to match my pace. I’m thinking of taking him to the local high school’s track, which is fenced in, to see if he’d like to really run around for a bit.
Anyway, the boy also did a bang-up job later that evening at his first vet appointment, where the staples from his neutering surgery were removed. One of the dogs in the waiting room was a yippy maniac, but Rufus just eyed him warily and rubbed against my leg, reassuring me of my alpha-tude.
He did get a little nervous when the vet lifted him up onto the exam table, but not so catatonic that he wouldn’t nibble a treat out of my hand. During the exam, the vet asked me a bunch of questions about the dog’s behavior, health, etc., and marveled over how we managed to get The Best Dog Ever.
; it’s a longish book, and I was pretty busy this weekend.
, by Jose Gonzalez
