Sunday, May 27, 2012

Life with Raúl

I was never going to get another dog.  I mean never.  My last dog entered my life over 20 years ago and I fell in love with him.  Philippe du Bois was his name.  Tall, white, fluffy, smart ..... poodley. Oh, and he had a fetish.  A foot fetish.  I'm not kidding.  He adored women's feet and would stare at them.  Heaven help you if you took your shoe off - especially a high heeled shoe.  He went insane and forced his licks upon unsuspecting women visitors.

So here we are, more than two decades later and something bizarre came over me.  What .... what could it be?  This face, perhaps?


No, I think it was more than that.  After all, I decided to start looking for a puppy, and then I found Raúl.  Sure enough, somehow I came across an ad for a Havanese.  That's Raúl's breed:  Havanese.  They are the Cuban cousin to the Bichon Frise.  Small, smart, loving, adorable.  What's not to like?

Then I went out to the breeder for a visit.  Lost my mind completely, I know.  I didn't want a dog again.  Training it, taking it out, cleaning up poop.  The whole nine yards were something I never wanted again.  I went, anyway.  This is what I saw:


Yep, a little pile of adorableness.  Raúl is the one with the grey beard and eyebrows.  Just like his Daddy!  That's him at seven weeks.  I put a reserve on him and that was that.

Now the little guy lives with us and even though his Daddy's first reaction to my visiting a breeder was an arduous, "NO!", you couldn't tell now by the way the little boy has his Daddy twisted all the way around his little finger.

We're working on the potty training and teaching him not to eat the kitty food (no luck at all on the second thing yet).  For us, loving him has happened already.  For our five kitties, well ............ that's taking some time, but they are making headway.

The kitties have gone from loud hissing to nose to nose sniffing.  Ok, Bob still smacks Raúl on the butt every time Raúl turns around, but we take that as a bit of a love smack.  At least the kitties are intrigued by this little brown jumping bean who so very much wants to play with them.

Oh-O ..... Daddy's home.  Time to go.  I'll keep ya posted.