Lowering expectations for myself slightly. I bought all the stuff to post his ears. Got them posted.
While doing that we had a good wrestle concerning the possibilities of him lying quietly on my lap. First I took him for a loooong walk in the dog yard, where he bravely went off to explore the woods, eat weed flowers, and find new old toys. It was hot and he decided he likes the woods where it’s shady, but we kept moving until we were both hot and sweaty. Then we came in and I arranged the ear posts while he started napping. Then I sat down in the recliner and got him on my lap and then we had a talk. He finally decided that getting petted wasn’t really so bad, and he decided to stay and fall asleep.
He hasn’t gone OUT the two dog doors to the yard yet because when he wakes up I’m in a hurry to get him outside, but he’s gone IN them about a billion times. We’ve progressed to where I only have to hold them open about an inch for him to push on through. It’s especially good when he’s hot and he can smell the cool air coming out that inch.
He learned how to jump into the recliner. And why he would want to be there.
We played tug and chase a LOT. We’re going to need some work on “that’s enough now, sweet pea, give me back my hand towel!” He got a package of treats from a friend and I started working on sit, but the treats were so small he couldn’t figure out how to get them in his mouth, so I ended up just shovelling them in – much like coal into a furnace.
As soon as he figures out the dog doors he’ll be puppy-house-trained. He heads for the door and pees when I’m not paying attention.
Syn and Stitch came home from Auntie Barbara’s in the morning. Old Stitch walked in, shrugged, and told him that he better not sit in her chair. He spent 10 minutes being a dick to Syn but she finally made him yelp and he became suddenly very polite. It’s going to take several more days of Polite Puppy before she decides he can stay. He did put his nose right in her toothy face after supper and she read him Rudyard Kipling’s story of the Elephant’s Child whose nose was stretched out by a crocodile.
After I posted his ears he was unhappy and shook his head so I got him on my lap and petted him to sleep again. I was listening to an audiobook and enjoying warm sleeping puppy when the doorbell rang. Now, I can’t put him down on the floor because he’s abruptly awake and he’ll pee. I can’t take him out the back door into the yard because somebody’s at the front door, so I carried him to the front door, wading past Stitch and Syn announcing the visitors (yeah, thanks, I heard the bell too). I get to the door and I can’t open it because my arms are full of 30 pounds of Giant Schnauzer puppy. I hollered “OPEN THE DOOR!” and the non-doggie visitor did so. Syn and Stitch burst forth to say hello and I followed thrusting this large struggling bundle of legs and paws ahead of me, pushed past them, and deposited him on the lawn.
I have to say that if that was someone I had known, none of that would have seemed odd to them at all.
Today he’s learning the word “thwart”. Marina said he wasn’t a barker, and he’s not – until he’s thwarted. I’m guessing there wasn’t a lot of thwarting in his birth home – puppies to play with, always someone eager to have a good wrestle. 6-year-old Syn will like him eventually, but for now he’s too rowdy and he can’t come within 5′ of her without her snarling at him. He’s learned that this Means Something, but he doesn’t have to like it. She’s thwarting him. He sits 5′ off her port bow and barks at her. This does little to improve her mood.
12-year-old Stitch seems a safer bet, and he likes her a lot. So much, in fact, that this afternoon he got a good head of steam going and simultaneously chest-butted her (which would have knocked her flying) and grabbed her by the back of the neck (which prevented her from flying). She took him apart. He was thwarted. He stood back and barked at her until he got up the nerve to try again and now he’s just humping her. Stitch is telling him repeatedly to knock it off and I’m waiting patiently for her to up her game and take him apart again so he’ll knock it off for keeps.