Sorry, the writing is a bit disjointed because I drew this at Comics Club, where the banter is lots of fun and goes by very fast!

As you’ll have gathered from my previous post, we quickly fell in love with Doug the Dog.

The next few days, though, made us realize what a big job we have ahead of us in training him. (Yes, we knew this, but realities are always somehow bigger when they arrive.)

Doug has a lot of energy, and likes to chew, dig, and bite. Yesterday, for instance, I had to do surgery on his toy Chicken (who’s a rooster, but that’s not as clear a sound). His throat was chewed open.

It’s not pretty, but Doug doesn’t care. And today Chicken had follow-up surgery on his belly, which Doug had torn open. (This toy was supposed to be chew-proof.)

We had some harsh words with Doug last night when he was digging on the couch, then immediately felt awful as his tail went between his legs and he looked guiltily up at us. Then, though, he did it again and got snarly with us when we tried to correct him.

What we’re trying to remember, though, is that he’s not being “bad”, he’s just being natural. It’s up to us to work with his nature, and to give him chances to win and feel good. We hate the thought of making him afraid or dominating him — even though we don’t want him wrecking our stuff!

He is generally a very happy and good-natured dog, and loves people. And when the trainer came around for our first session yesterday, he loved her a little too much, basically raping her leg for much of the time. But she taught us some basic skills, and it’s amazing to see Doug now able to do these things just within one day.

So there’s hope!

In other news, I’ve started Chapter Eight of the current book for Strategic Coach. Nearly finished another one!

P.S. I spent the afternoon looking after the dog while trying to work on the chapter. That was… ineffective.

The second I looked away, Doug started trying to chew the couch, the footstool, the carpet, or anything. So I had to come up with distracting games to play, which lasted exactly as long as I played them, then he’d go back to getting negative attention by doing one of the ‘bad’ things and get snarly and snappy if I got near him.

I don’t get angry often, but I got angry with him, and it was hard work sticking to the “positive training” thing and not acting on my frustration.

I guess he’s just bored and frustrated and has a history of people not being nice to him, so I don’t blame him. But… this is hard.

Craig’s home now for a bit, but going out to a meeting. I’m going to miss Comics Club so I can continue to look after this crazy little animal.

I’ve sought out countless YouTube videos, but they’re all trying to sell dog food or are being vaguely philosophical about this positivity stuff. I need emergency answers I can act on now!

P.P.S. Doug is finally quiet: I took him for a walk, we got back home, and he vomited up the contents of his stomach. Eating chestnuts from the tree in the back yard? Or was it yesterday’s coprophilia? Whatever the cause, he’s asleep now.

P.P.P.S. Now the dog is curled up like a pretzel on the floor beside me, and I’m getting today’s work finished.

It’s like we’ve got two dogs: the crazy, barky, defiant one and the placid, loving, snuggly one.

P.P.P.P.S. Craig picked up two Kong toys tonight. I filled them with kibble and peanut butter. THEY ARE FECKING MAGICAL!!! The dog is mesmerized while puzzling out how to the food, then continues to play and play with it afterward.

In less fortunate news, he is totally immune to the bitter spray that’s meant to deter him from biting furniture, shoes, etc.

We have a new family member : Doug.

He’s a handful, and it’s only been a few days since we adopted him from the shelter, but we already love him.

Instead of feeling limited by this additional responsibility, I feel like it’s making me a bigger person with a bigger heart.

I’ve been working on a book for Strategic Coach, so that’s taking up a lot of my time and energy — though in a welcome way.

Good news on the home-front, though: Craig passed his Speech and Language exam! He’s sent away his application to become a member of SAC, the national association of speech and language pathologists and audiologists. It’s such a wonderful turn of events, given how bleak things were for him in Ontario.

We’ve also been going to the Humane Society to look at dogs. We didn’t get the first dog we did a meet-and-greet with, Sasha, who was a lovely, placid girl. Shortly after, though, the Society called us in to meet Doug, a nine-month-old, very smart, very energetic wee fella. It’s scary to think of how much he would turn our lives upside-down, but now it’s hard to un-imagine it.

At various points in my life, I’ve bought a French curve because other people said they were great.

I still have absolutely no idea how to use one, so I’m taking this poor, smashed-up thing out of my bag.

We had a little visitor in the back yard the other day.

Ah, the biggest challenge of blogging: keeping at it! Some time has gone by, events have piled up, and now the question is whether to let them slide away or try to capture them here.

So this doesn’t become a beaver-dam, I’ll do a quick recap of some highlights:

I went to Toronto for Strategic Coach’s end-of-fiscal-year team meeting, and that was pretty fun. The company did well, we got bonuses (I generously gave half of mine to Revenue Canada), and we did some fun team activities, including an afternoon running around the Royal Ontario Museum in teams collecting clues to solve a conundrum.

I managed to see some friends, but missed others. I do hate that dynamic — the King Solomon time management decisions an inevitable omissions.

One fun highlight, though, was spending an afternoon playing games at Snakes and Lattes with my friend Margaux and my nephew Andrew.

They indulged me and played a game of my storytelling role-playing game. Here are the characters they made up, which I doodled for them:

I also caught up with my old pal Beale, who parked that bike across the street from the cafe where we met, so I kept seeing it every time I looked out the window.

I’m happy to hear it’s serving him well, though.

So that was that, and I flew away…

It’s nice to be back here, spending time with the family and feathering the nest with Craig.

I’m deep into another book with work and loving it, but feeling guilty because Craig’s in a miserable limbo as he waits to hear about his work prospects.

Comics Club continues to be a real treat during my week. Last week we did an “Exquisite Corpse“-type exercise; I drew something completely random and crazy , and it was fun! It made me realize that I never draw just for fun anymore: everything has to turn out, because it begins its life with a purpose already in mind.

I so want to create work of my own to share with the world, but concerning myself with a purpose up-front kind of twists the whole exercise out of shape. As Oscar Wilde said, “Art is useless.“

So that’s something I’m thinking about. Meanwhile, though, I’ve got work to go and do!

You can’t really see it, but I heard scratching this morning and found a wee mouse peeking out of our humane trap.

We drove to Victoria Park and found a nice spot near a park building. I piled up some food, and Craig made a little nest of a toilet roll and leaves, then we let the mouse out. Unfortunately, it all happened so fast that I couldn’t get a picture: its little face poking out of the trap, black eyes bulging with fear, then it dashed away under the building.

Goodbye, friend 🙁

What is it about interacting with animals, eh? We often want more than they do — some kind of relationship or reciprocation, whereas they’re busy being scared or just surviving — but I just feel such love and care for them, and I believe that’s everyone’s native response until it’s stifled or forgotten.