Still a bit bite-y.
But Puusti is slowly learning how to dog in our family. Very slowly. He gets excited and bites a lot, so we have to "punish" him by removing our presence. At least though, he sits on command (most of the time), lets go of the toy (most of the time), comes when called (rarely) - and is making it through the night without having to be taken out to pee - which is a big win. He gets up early most days and needs to go straight out, but it is better than 3am.
He is also liking the ramp and platform I built for him so he can see out of the window. He goes up there and chills sometimes, just watching the world go past. The hope is that he will get used to seeing the movement of people and cars and he doesn't start barking at them. Until he gets all of his shots, he can't hang out with too many other dogs, so we haven't taken him for very long walks yet. We have a large yard that I fenced off for him though, so he gets plenty of exercise, but he isn't very good on the leash.
Who is?
The nicest thing however, is that Smallsteps has started becoming more responsible with him and is more comfortable taking care of things, like feeding and taking him out. We had several dogs as a kid, but we were in the country and had a large area just for the dogs, so never had to take them out walking on the street - so never had to pick up after the dogs either. This was a bit of a hurdle for Smallsteps to begin with, but we forced her to do it and she is now comfortable.
It annoys me when people don't pick up after their dog.
We have now got some gates in place so we can separate a space out for him if we aren't home, without the risk of him getting up to too much mischief. I made a decent one for the stairs that he can't get over, and he will still have a lot of room to roam, play and sleep. When we are home, we can also leave him in there for when we are eating, and he has become more used to spending some time apart from us as well, which is important for him to learn as we obviously can't be with him 24/7 for the next fifteen years, nor do we want him to get stressed when we aren't here.
I think that owning a pet comes not only with the responsibility of care, but the acceptance that the owner becomes the pet's whole life. It is a living thing, and when people neglect their responsibility and abuse the animal or reduce its quality of life, it shows a lot about the person. People who don't care for pets well, are terrible humans.
Terrible Humans.
I will repeat that, just in case.
Of course, there are some people who go to the other extreme, where their pet is their whole life too - which is pretty weird. I think a lot of people who don't have children end up in this "fur baby" mentality, where their whole life revolves around their pet. Maybe it is better that these people don't have children anyway, but still - pretty weird.
But I think for kids who are growing up, having the responsibility of a pet and having something alive that they care for, gets them more ready for the world, as they are forced to do things at times they don't want to do. They will also have to face the inevitable loss of something they love at some point too, which is a good lesson in and of itself.
Puusti will probably outlive me.
None of us are here forever, so we should probably think about how we treat each other also. We should probably all take some more responsibility for how we interact with others, and lose some of the expectation about how we believe we should be treated by others. At least, before feeling entitled to certain treatment, we should treat others the way we want to be treated first.
The golden rule seems to have been lost in today's society.
A lot of social ethics seem to be going to the dogs.
Taraz
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