my puppy!

dear readers, this puppy business is growing on me! once i got past the initial fear that the peeps had found me another bride i decided to speak to him. he is actually rather sweet. admittedly he has some funny habits, but no doubt with sound leadership from yours truly he will soon get the hang of things. his most irritating habit is undoubtedly night-time wailing. i suppose it is only to be expected that a chap will find it a little tricky moving from sleeping with a pile of other warm bodies to sleeping alone in a crate but even so, at my age i need my sleep without neighbour nuisance.

on the first night herself slept on the sofa. it is not uncommon for me to have company in the living-room. himself regularly is relegated to the sofa on account of his snoring. at least herself is relatively quiet. but young dave was a little restless and needed to pop outside to answer the call of nature on a number of occasions. i wouldn't have minded that in itself. i know what its like to have trouble with the old plumbing. but after he had had a tinkle he took forever to get used to his bed again. there was wailing and fussing and all sorts.

herself remembers well when my boy was a pup and the many happy hours she spent sitting by his cot with her hand on him so he knew she was there. its a technique invented by the peeps called 'being boring but reassuring'. you must never do anything interesting like put the light on, or jiggle toys, or even move around much. you just have to let the small crittur know you are there so it doesn't panic.

some of herself's friends had a different approach to their babies. they left them to wail. it is called controlled crying, although from what i hear there is nothing very controlled about it. the peeps gave it a go but by all accounts it was not a success. after about 30 seconds herself turned to himself and said,

"if i have to do this for a moment longer it will destroy my insides. i don't care if it ruins his psyche for years to come i cannot listen to a little thing alone at night in a state and not go to him. i will not be able to function at work if i have to do this." himself agreed that it was not for them and they went back to the boring but reassuring technique. it seems to have worked - my boy sleeps like a log nowadays.

so dave the puppy is coming in for the same. after he is back in his crate, with his soft toy and fluffy blanky, herself sits on the floor by the door and puts her hand on dave. she sits like this in the dark until he is asleep. sometimes she misjudges the level of sleep and is creeping out of the door when a little wail starts up and she has to start again. i would not have the patience. the little fellow would have a swift cuff and be told to get on with it. but having said that this technique seems to work on puppies as well as it does on babies. last night was only day 2 and dave slept from midnight to 5.30am without a break. if we can just get him round to 6.30am we will have the sleep thing cracked.

last night dave had the delight of a bedtime story from my boy. while herself made cuppa teas my boy read to dave about modern weapons. dave got to hear about how a double action shotgun works, and the joys of ak47s. he seemed to find this very relaxing. mind you, my boy used to enjoy having the regulations relating to fluorescent light in offices read to him every night for a long time. beefburger people are funny like this. herself greatly impressed a colleague who asked if there were regulations about strip lights in offices and she was able to reel off the whole thing word for word.

today herself is going to buy young dave some toys. i may be able to liberate one for me...