Fitting In

Well its been a couple weeks since my last post, but never fear, all is well with Earl. He continues to come to work with me, and has figured out that when I put my jacket on, we are going out, and that just because I get out of my chair doesn't mean we are going outside.

My daughter Brianne, who has always been a dog lover and looks forward to me picking her up from work with Earl in the backseat, has taken the time to do a watercolour painting and a sketch of Earl.

I have been in touch with Earl's original owner who had raced him. I have learned what ended Earl's racing career... a pulled muscle. Apparently Earl pulled a muscle and was rested for six weeks, but after the injury never came near to achieving his previous glory. It was as if he was hesitant to go all out and risk another injury. Smart boy. How many professional human athletes would be smart enough to not take risk? Good boy Earl. Just Say No to drugs.

After 5 weeks in our house Earl has tried to start collecting things in earnest. He has had his eye on the television remote, slippers, my jacket, pajamas... the list goes on. I have to remind my wife that she cannot give him her slipper one day, and then tell him NO the next day when he takes it on his own!

Living with Earl is like watching a child going through their developmental stages, except it is the Readers Digest condensed version.

Each day it seems there is a "he's never done that before" moment.

Digging in the back yard has started, not too bad, kind of amusing to be honest. Our back yard has never been a lush retreat of greenery as it gets a lot of hot afternoon sunshine, so we are not concerned. My mother-in-law was over visiting and decided Earl must be hot, so she put some water in the wading pool and coaxed him in. He loved it, splashed everyone as he tried to dig through the bottom of the pool and then, while soaking wet... decided to go and lie down in the dirt pile he had created earlier with his new-found digging skills.

Although I have been taking Earl to work every day, I am not sure how that is going to work out when our business moves to its new building. It has been good at our current building because I have my own small office. Okay, i used to be a storage room, but we cut a whole in the wall so I could see the rest of the graphics department and let in some natural light. Unfortunately I won't have my own office space in the new building, so the days of Earl accompanying me to work may be numbered. If this is the case I will still be taking him for his morning walk and zoomies... but then I will have to make the 10 minute drive to work (the luxury of living in a smallish community) and come back at lunch to take him for his noon walk. We will see how it all works out.

Last night I had a lousy sleep and was zonked when it came to take Earl outside, so this morning we only did Zoomies and then we went back to sleep. At one point I laid down on the floor with Earl and he reached out his paw to me and placed it on my arm. We are such buddies.

:-)