Ten-Finger Exercises

our new cutie-- a bundle of energy

Yesterday I drove to the Animal Shelter in the Tri-Cities and found this adorable dog. He could not be adopted until today, so Bill and I went back over and brought him home tonight. He is very playful and fun, but I am wondering if he's ever going to settle down for the night. He's supposed to be about two years old, but I'm thinking he's puppier than that. They had him listed as a Wheaten Terrier in one place and a Glen of Imaal Terrier in another. Like most of those guesses, he doesn't really fit the specs of either, but he's very cute. He knows to sit when told, and he knows the word 'No.' He whined in the car on the way home, and we stopped at a park where he immediately took care of business.

Once he was in the back yard, he happily played ball for an hour, then chewed on a rawhide BIll bought for the boxer. It was bit too big for him, and he held it vertically in between his paws and about gagged himself on it at first. He is interested in the cat, wants her to come play with him, but leaves her alone when she glares at him. He is very interested in drinking out of the fish pond as well as the bowl of water put out for him. The silly koi are intrigued by him too and come up to meet him, jumping out of the water. I think I'll have to put him in the dog run for several days at the least when I'm gone, to keep him for falling in the pond. It isn't all that deep, but the flagstones around it will slip and fall in, and I don't know how quickly he'd figure out how to climb out. Probably okay, but I'd rather be home when it happens.

I thought I'd be able to get a crate at the shelter, because I saw a huge pile of them there yesterday. No, those are just used for transporting, and it was too late to stop and buy one somewhere on a Saturday night. We have an enclosed dog run in our back yard which we never use, but we'll have to put him there tomorrow during church and buy a crate on the way home. I'm going to go get a big box to see if he'd like that for sleeping tonight. My guess is he'll choose the bed instead. We'll see.

Bill, who has no taste in pet names and probably thinks the same of me, wants to name him 'Benji,' like the movie dog. Since I tend to pick names that are too strange, we have not hit a happy medium. I would have named him Wheaties, because he's wheat colored with a little white and gray. The name he came in with-- I don't know where it came from-- was Dan, with the Glen of Imaal Terrier label. So that's what his microchip says, but the shelter had the name Benny on his cage, and Bill liked Benji. What can I say for a guy who had a cat named Socks? Black with white feet of course. It's more important that he likes the dog than that I like his name, right?

Wish me luck tomorrow during church!