Who's a Big Dog Then?


I’m pleased to say our new dog Elwood seems to be settling into life with us quite nicely.

As I speak, he’s lying on the floor in front of the sofa having recently come in from his evening wee. He’s pretty exhausted, which I take to mean we’re doing something right. My wife pointed out the other day that since getting him we seem to have only one objective: to keep him in a constant state of supreme tiredness. This is our mission should we choose to accept it and we certainly do; far better that he should be too tired to do anything than he be bouncing off the walls at a loose end.

We’re fortunate that he’s very easygoing, particularly when he’s so big; if he had any awareness of how large he was he’d have the potential to be quite intimidating (if he wasn’t such a softie). As it stands, we tend to take him out for two walks a day - one of about an hour and another of about thirty minutes - and that seems to tire him out sufficiently, so much so that he’s asleep for pretty much the rest of the day.

While I’ve taken him to a variety of places over the past fortnight, tomorrow sees my latest social experiment: seeing how he copes with going to some dog-friendly pubs, while I meet my friend Steve in the morning; hopefully they won’t be too busy and he’ll be all right with it; I’m pretty sure he will be, but I won’t jump to conclusions just yet. Wish he luck…

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