Many congratulations to Malaya. It takes a very dedicated person to spend so much of their life, especially their young life, in such an endeavor. Hopefully that kind of dedication will be what makes her one of the few people who ever get to do what they love/are passionate about for a living.

And what a beautiful puppy!

Carful not to spend too much time around the little guy, he will grow on you. Before you know it he will be a regular member of the family. To the point that you will worry that he is lonely when you aren't there so you simply must adopt him a playmate.

A lot of people say that dogs are less intelligent than cats, which might be true (come to think of it it has to be true. If you throw a ball a dog will run and get it, over and over. A cat would just look at the ball and think to itself, "now you've got to walk all the way over there to pick it up again, jack-ass"), but nothing takes the edge off of a bad day like coming home to see that wagging tail.

As for the steaming piles of doggy poo, a friend of mine got a puppy and used newspaper while house training it. When he walks it now he lays down a piece of newspaper and the dog dutifully craps on it. It makes pick up a lot easier, no fear of the random slip/finger in poo type accidents. However I suppose it would depend on what sort of laws are in place governing the disposal of such; if you were not able to leave it in the city bin on the corner it would really stink up your house that way.

Can we expect to see as many dog photos in the future as we have cat photos in the past?

 

My wife suggested awhile back that we name our trees. Darwin is the name of our 4th tree, so-named because of all the clay we had to dig through to get a big enough hole to plant him in. We were dubious about his odds of surviving, but so far, so good.

 

Congratulations, Malaya.

 

There won't be that many Darwin posts since I don't see him that often. He's been at Malaya's mom's house for oh, 2 months or so; I'd just never been over to meet him until this week. If he were here, interacting with/terrorizing the cats, he'd probalby make more blog appearances.

There will be more photos though; Malaya's got her new camera and she's taking a camera class, so she's clicking away at any opportunity, and a new dog certainly qualifies. She took about 100 during our walk yesterday (yes, we were over at mom's 2 days in a row) and I already had 6 or 8 decent shots here. I'm way behind on posting photos, but i'll probably make up a darwin photos page and put a bunch on there, along with some more darwin info.

He's not a puppy, for one thing. He's over a year old and pretty well as big as he's going to get, at least if Malaya's mom holds strong to her plan to only feed him twice a day, with occasional treats and no begging at/feeding from the table.

Darwin's house trained; the steamy goodness is dropped in grass on walks, and it's always picked up since Malaya and her mom want to be responsible dog owners. Just walking around the past couple of days I can see why so many homeowners don't want dogs near their houses; we saw so much shit left on lawns by lazy asshole dog owners. I'd happily hide on my front porch, armed with a paint pellet gun, waiting for my opportunity. And no, I would most certainly not be shooting at the dog.