Full House

I haven’t been blogging much lately. Work has been busy, and the bulk of my writing life has been spent drafting Cutting Teeth (I finished the first draft on Sunday; more about that later in the week). In addition to the career-related  business, we have another canine addition to the family.

Over the past few weeks, we’d noticed a stray dog running around the neighborhood. He didn’t have the sense to not run toward speeding cars, either — Jon and I nearly hit him more than once. The little guy would frequently approach us on our walks, and while Max was reticent at first, they soon became buddies. After some inquiry, we found out he’d been abandoned by a family in the street who couldn’t afford to feed him anymore. Jon and I couldn’t just let him roam around in the middle of a very hot summer. So last Tuesday, we brought him home. The neighborhood kids called him Blackie, but that wasn’t working for us. So we renamed him Simon.

We weren’t intending to get a second dog this soon. The timing isn’t exactly perfect. But we knew we had to take him in. And so far, so good. There are some minor issues, of course. He’s very territorial about the second bedroom. He and Max need to be fed in separate areas of the house (for now). He’s a howler, and Max has been imitating him. He needs to get neutered (happening tomorrow), and he didn’t come to us pre-trained. We have our work cut out for us. But he and Max wrestle and play, and Max seems way happier to have a friend around when we’re gone at work all day. We’re happy to have Simon, and I’m looking forward to many years with him.