Could Miles be part cat?

So, it's no secret to the two of you who read this that I am an avid knitter. Miles has been phenomenal, actually, about leaving my knitting alone. He has had the occasional time where he has been bratty about it, and there was that one time he totally ruined a knitting project that I was working on, but it was a Christmas present for Christmas 2010 that I was working on right after we adopted him, which was in April. So, in all reality, I had it coming.

Regardless, there was a particularly hilarious instance today, and it looked like this:


There have been other hilarious instances too. We've pretty much been laughing constantly at him the past few days (who am I kidding? We're always laughing at him), like the time yesterday when he tried to dance with the vacuum cleaner, or this time:


Rob is on vacation this week and I was at work, VERY much in need of a laugh, and Miles was only happy to oblige.

In other news, Puppy class is going great. We practiced polite leash walking in the last class, which went very badly in the class, but he's been practically perfect at it ever since, being that we are actually teaching him how to walk on a leash in a way that is effective.

The main thing that I want to talk about, though, is baby teeth. Miles had not lost any by his second round of vaccinations, but that was normal - he was only about 3 months old at that point. Then he started losing his front teeth shortly after, and over the course of this weekend, he lost three of his canine teeth. I want him to lose his fourth, or not, because he looks absolutely hilarious with one canine tooth. He is also chewing less right now because he can't (as evidenced by the fact that he is currently gumming one of Rob's soccer shoes), but we know that is about to change REAL fast.

The one thing that we have found that helps him are wet washcloths, rolled up and frozen. He could literally chew on those for hours. He's pretty low-maintenance - I know some dog owners who get their dogs teething toys, and I definitely feel like it's just not necessary. The washcloths are perfect because they both ease discomfort while he's teething and give him a challenge.

Another positive byproduct of him currently being practically toothless is that he eats slower. But we'll deal with the fact that he scarfs his food in another post.

We will leave you with that, and go let Miles enjoy the last 12 or so hours of his manhood. He's such a good boy.

A TMI Post about Peeing and NARBs

If you don't want to read about TMI things regarding dogs, then this post is not for you. I am bringing both of these things up today because he has done them both today and they are fresh on my mind.

The first thing that I'm going to talk about is excited peeing. Miles doesn't do it in front of me, or in front of Rob, for that matter. He does it when he's in front of people that he doesn't see often, or for people to whom he is submissive. He doesn't pee much, and the doggy day care lady (for whom he is submissive), Christine, says that it will likely pass after he is neutered. T-Minus 9 days. We call them the sprinkles. According to this article, he will likely grow out of it - it's most prevalent in puppies, because they don't have full bladder control until they are a little older, sometimes even up to a year old. He does it most when he is excited to see people - for instance, my father-in-law this afternoon, all over his shoe and driveway. He's generally pretty good about not doing that, though, unless he gets really excited...AND, there's a new thing that he does when he's REALLY excited that just recently developed in the past couple of weeks - he SMILES! Much like this (except more subtle and less vicious looking - photo courtesy of http://gotsmile.net):

Anywho, he's pretty adorable when he does it, and we try to praise it so that we can get him to do it on command. He knows that it's not a bad thing so he's doing it more often, which ABSOLUTELY cracks me up.

The next thing that I'm going to talk about is a little crass, but it's the NARB (look at #1 and #3 to get what I mean). This happens at two specific times:

1. After breakfast. What can we say, he gets overly excited by food.
2. When he's really, really excited. Like, every time I pick him up from daycare.

It also sometimes just happens when he's just sitting there. He'll start whining every time, as if to say "WHAT'S HAPPENING TO MEEEEE?" He just waits it out, and then he's fine. This will likely also stop happening once he is neutered, so we're not too worried about it at this point.

In other words, our Miles is growing up! He still cracks us up every day (for instance, right now, while he is seemingly trying to build his own little fort out of a cardboard box)! He's currently about 40 pounds - our vet says that once he hits six months, his growth will likely slow significantly (and it has already started to - he's gaining about 2 pounds per week currently, slowing from 4-6 when we adopted him), and he will be at approximately 2/3 of his total weight at that time. My guess is that he's going to be 56 pounds, all told. It could be a little more, but I'm holding fast at the 56 that I put in the family pool. :)

Our favorite thing is to introduce Miles to a new sound, because when we do, he does this, from side to side:

He's such a good boy.