I can't even believe these words escaped my lips the other day.

"I mean, Jesus, we may as well have a kid, we're already parents!"
(from a conversation with a friend last week)
(It is also worth noting that kids are nowhere in our future, for those who might have looked at that quote and gasped *ahemMOMahem*)

So, a couple of things have gone on in Miles' doggy world in the past few weeks.

His daycare closed because of many different issues, mainly family.  This left us kind of scrambling for a new place to take him, which we finally landed on.  I don't think it would have felt nearly as stressful (and to be honest, it really WASN'T that stressful) if I weren't about to undergo Major Life Changes.  Anywho, we found a new daycare for him and all is right with the world.  Except that the woman who has become a good personal friend of mine has moved to North Carolina and we likely won't see her again for a very, very long time.  Happy trails to her and her family, but I will miss them.

The other thing is that we probably won't be able to use the Easy Walk anymore when we walk him.  It has started to cause sores in his little doggy armpits, and while it doesn't cause him any pain (or appear to, anyway), we can't keep using it if it's going to cause him a negative experience while walking.

I found it interesting that it was doing this to him, and so I decided to look it up and see if anyone else had a similar problem.

Holycrap, the first two pages of my google search were of other people who've had these issues, and others, with the Easy Walk.  It's not a matter of fit, it's of where it lands on the body and it forces a dog to alter its gait in order to not become uncomfortable, and I also learned that there's actually a pretty significant risk of a dog just flipping itself over while in it, which can cause all kinds of damage to tendons, muscles and bones.  Really interesting reads.  So, I think that the days of the Easy Walk are done, which is fine - he's not a huge puller anymore, and if he is, then we just continue to work on it.

My boss at the SPCA has two dogs as well...a beagle who's about 4, and a yellow lab who's about to turn a year.  She said that her beagle didn't calm down until she was a solid 3 years old, and that's about the age that most dogs start to calm.  After that, he'll be a breeze.  He kind of already is.  Minus the destroying of stuff (our fault, really) and the pulling and the occasional toy aggression, he's pretty much the best dog ever.  I think that once things pan out by the end of the summer, we may even look at the possibility of getting a second dog.  I would certainly love one, and I'm sure Rob would too.  But we need a bigger place first, and that will likely take some time.  We'll see. :)

For now, Miles is plenty of dog for us.  He's such a good boy.