I took Bodhi out on his last longish walk of the summer just now, and he found a gigantic stick to play with on the patch of no-man's-grass just off Rte. 1 in Old Greenwich. It's not what I'd think of as the best place to play, but then again, I'm not a four-month-old puppy with an insatiable urge to put everything in the world in my mouth and fight it.
Watching this dog grow has been amazing. When we took him home a month and a half ago, he weighed fourteen pounds and could sit comfortably on Erica's lap in the car. Yesterday, when we went to visit Erica's grandparents in Queens, we realized that it was probably the last time Bodhi'd be able to sit on the floor of the passenger seat of my car. He's more than doubled in size since we've gotten him, and he's definitely learned a lot--he now runs up and down our stairs at will, has figured out what the fridge is for (for ice cubes, obviously), and can fetch when he wants to.
It's humbling to think that this is the dog that our kids will grow up with. Everything we do with him today will have massive repercussions down the line. The love and discipline we show Bodhi can only help him to learn his role in our family, his new pack. I know this is pretty obvious to anyone who has ever had a dog, but forgive me--this is my first.
I'm looking forward to helping him build a little endurance and tolerance for longer walks--this guy's got a ton of puppy energy that I'd love to redirect into a passion for mile-long (or longer!) walks, maybe even a trip to Sleeping Giant or something at some point this winter. While I'm excited to see how Bodhi turns out as a grown-up dog, I'm enjoying him as a puppy so much now that I can't imagine anything being better than these days.
No comments:
Post a Comment