my train of thought left the station

What kind of story teller am I anyway, dropping a bombshell like that without any further details? Puppies are big news, after all. My brevity can partially be attributed to Amelia's new found maturity in which she has decided to downsize her nap schedule to one short nap a day, on occasion, (...and strangely enough, needs to be holding a baseball when she does. It appears the October excitement is not lost on her...go Sox!!) but is mostly due to the fact that we got a puppy that I wasn't able to tell you more about the puppy we got. This little vortex of attention has eaten up much of my spare time and, in turn, I am forced to give you a more condensed version of the news, which probably works better with your short attention span anyway. Hey, do you want to go ride bikes?

Oh, the puppy. Right.

I'm sure the first question you are asking is "why?". Well, my job was starting to get a little too easy and there just weren't any more challenges for me to face in a day, so it made good business sense to get a creature that doesn't listen, pees on the carpet, can't wear a diaper, and likes to attack babies. I'm just kidding about that last part: you can easily cut out a tail hole in the size 4 Huggies to make them work.

...but seriously folks...

"Big Boy"*, as he is currently named for lack of a better one, is a boxer/border collie mix and is actually quite gentle with kids. The family we adopted him from had two of their own, a little younger than Elijah and Amelia respectively, so he already had an idea of what behavior is appropriate around the small and wobbly. He is taking to his obedience training wonderfully as well. For those of you who have never heard of clicker training your dog need to look into it today. Amazingly, it is a far more effective training method than a newspaper across the rear and they actually enjoy it, so you get reap the rewards of good behavior with none of the puppy eyed guilt which inevitable follows with use of the latter method.

Well, I've got to cut this short since today is the day we're going to learn how to sit still...not me of course, I'm an old dog and am unlikely to learn that trick, even with a clicker... click.

So long.


* I wrote this on Friday but didn't get a chance to post it since: Amelia and Zach woke up, and the dog had to go out, and the we were all getting a little hungry, and I had some laundry, and dishes, and...
Since the day it was written, the Mr Steve clan has unanimously agreed on the name "Niko" for our dog. Let it be written, let it be done, that Niko shall be his name and his name shall be Niko.