This weekend marked a milestone for Henry, being the first time we granted unrestricted access to the Living/Dining room, in addition to his usual haunt of the hardwood floored Kitchen/Family Room.
He's certainly been in all rooms in the house before, and has spent considerable time playing with Uncle Zachary in the L/D room. But it's always been a "special case" kind of thing. We'd let him in there for about 30 minutes, keep an eye on things, and then return him to his portion of the house when play was starting to die down.
Puppy bladders, even bladders of very good puppies, just aren't that trustworthy, and my carpet is already in bad enough shape as it is.
But Henry had been an exceptionally good puppy for at least a month. And having reached his four month milestone, I decided it was Time.
The baby-gate was moved from the K/F entryway to the hallway (keeping the back part of the house still off limits) and Henry was free to mingle with Uncle Zachary "full time". I camped out in the Living Room with a good(?) book, Hubby staked out the Family Room TV, and the four-legged boys enjoyed romping as they wished, where they wished.
For about 30 minutes.
At which point they crashed on the Big Sofa with me and took a nap.
At least Uncle Zachary tried to take a nap.
After all, that is what's supposed to happen after a rousing play session with your puppy. You play some bitey-face, some keep away, squeak the puppy a few times, and then retire for a nap on the Big Sofa while the puppy goes... elsewhere.
But not this time.
This time, the puppy didn't go elsewhere. This time he hopped up on the Big Sofa and tried to continue bitey-face. He did some ear tugging, played Jump On Big Dog Belly, chewed on a few paws, stretched out across Uncle Zachary's back and chewed on his flews for a while (ewww?) before Zachary's patience was finally rewarded and the puppy, now either tired or bored, at last gave up and curled up on my lap for a long awaited (at least from Uncle Zachary's point-of-view) nap.
Ah, peace in Happy Valley.
It's been several long months since I've known the peace of having a pair of fur-babies snuggled up with me on the Big Sofa while I read a good(?) book.
As my favorite t-shirts say: Life is Good.
(News flash: You guessed it - I hadn't even hit the send button and Henry leaves a wandering pee-trail across the floor. Yeah, I know. My Bad. I'm guessing he went to the slider (which I can't see from the Living Room) pawed at the door (which I couldn't hear over the TV in the Family Room) and gave up when no one arrived. I will now turn off the TV if no one is going to be in there to hear him!)
No comments:
Post a Comment