Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Friday Night with Spike

The introduction to Spike came on Friday night. Ann from CFPR appeared on our doorstep with some of her pack. In tow was Julia, her own baby girl and Flynn, also her pugger. Poor Flynn is stuck wearing his cone of shame for a while. Of course, Spike came along, too. We met in the driveway where Henry had more interest in going inside than playing meet and greet. So, the rest of the socialites hung out for a bit, chatted, sniffed bottoms (just the dogs, of course!) and eventually we made our way inside. Once inside the visiting pugs explored the house. It was crazy to see a home full of pugs again! Not just pugs but mobile, active, heavy breathing pugs! We were taking it all in. Henry, on the other hand wondered off to be alone. It was sad. It was probably a bit overwhelming for him though. So, we tried not to push anything.

Letting everyone get to know one another and recognizing that this was probably our home check should we end up adopting Spike, we toured Ann (and her hubby Bill) around the house (mostly the yard). This was where I experienced a moment of weirdness. We walked out back and Ann promptly announces, "MIMO!" referring to our Mimosa tree in the back yard (which of course we have discussed many times on the blog. But what is so weird about this is that it is a reminder that whenever you have someone in your home for the first time that has read the blog (especially faithfully like Ann has) you have a tendency to forget that they pretty much already know EVERYTHING about you! So hearing her recognize Mimo, and call Mimo by name (and reflect when Mimo was barely a sprout in pot) just gives you a funny feeling. It is hard to describe.

Anyway, so pugs are bouncing around the house and we try to bring Henry a little bit into the mix and pretty much as soon as Spike moved in Henry's direction Henry started to nip at him (well, technically it was the air since Henry can't see and his aim is off). But it was Henry's little warning that this was not yet cool. So, we again tried to give Henry the distance he needed. After a bit, it was just Henry and Spike. It was at this time when it sunk in that this little exuberant new pug needed a walk to take the edge off. He was a bit of a bundle of nerves (new house, new people, old pugs and people gone, etc). So, we divided and conquered. One took Spike walking while the other stayed home to reassure Henry that all would be ok.

After the walk things did go better. Spike was starting to wind down a little bit. Henry was not longer cranky. And we took this as a good sign. Not long after all of this, it was time for bed. While Spike is very agile, he doesn't quite have enough giddyup to jump on the people bed. We wheeled in the ottoman so that he could make it with a 2 step process. He learned this quickly! (Although torturing us, he did not use the ottoman to get down in 2 steps.) He simply leaped off the bed! Mind you, we are used to senior pugs! No one has jumped on or off our bed in eons!

So that was night one. More about Saturday and Sunday in future episodes.