Our Dog Duke

"Doot!" is the way that Charlie says our new dog's name.  It is pretty cute.  He likes to pat Duke's side and will point out his nose and eyes.  He likes our dog quite a bit.  I have even seen him trying to get up on Duke while saying "pwease!"  Charlie sure loves our new dog.  Henry is currently indifferent to the fact that we now have a dog.  Go figure.

We are having the rest of our fence put in and it should be done in about two weeks.  My desire to get a dog became re-piqued.  I started looking all over online for a dog.  I finally found a cute little puppy (half St. Bernard, half Great Pyrenees) at a shelter.  We were all ready to go pick him up.  The shelter sent us "adoption" paperwork to sign.  After reading the four page document I found nine different things that I was not willing to commit to.  Such as notifying the shelter if we move, if animal control was called, if we die, or other such things along with keeping the dog indoors.  (I have never understood the idea of keeping a dog indoors.  Sure they may "prefer" it, but I am sure a horse, pig, or chicken would prefer to be indoors too.)  So, I let the animal shelter know that what they were asking was ridiculous.

Being put out by the shelter I decided that I was just going to get a dog off of the KSL classified instead.  I found a gorgeous English Mastiff for $50!  I was so excited that I called up the people and got him that night.

It has been a little tough trying to figure out how to house the dog though until our fence gets put up.  He was in the basement, but then we switched him to the garage and put the cat in the basement.  (Kitty and Duke don't really see eye to eye on things.  I think Duke would be fine with her, but she antagonizes him.  Hopefully they will get along one day.)  Our fence should be installed in about two weeks, so before then Duke is allowed in the house a few times a day and he takes two short walks each day.  He barks quietly a little bit when feeling lonely, but when told to hush he does.

He is as well fairly well trained in the idea of boundaries in the home.  I told him one time not to come down the hall to the bedrooms and he pretty well respects that.  He knows how to sit (he may not always do it though), shake, and he is getting better on walks to not drag me along.  He just always wants to trot on the walks which is the speed of my running.  And the best part is that he is so incredibly nice! Charles said that the more he gets to know the dog the more he likes him.  I am glad that he is such a sweet dog.  That does kind of translate into the idea that he isn't much of a watch dog, but I think if it came time to it he would step up to the task at hand.

I am so glad we have such a cute, nice dog!

(I know that none of these photos are great and I am not wearing make up, but it is what we got.  We will try for some better ones later.)