It's him or me

Hej, Hej,

Pronounced as “Hey”. That is a Swedish “hello”, or more like “Hi”. It takes a guy like me time to get used to it because “Hey you” is typically not a common greeting in the US. If you were in the military, you quickly learned that a “Hey” without a specific name attached to it was dangerous. If you stopped and looked around you ended up on a detail doing something unpleasant. So, you learned to ignore it and keep walking as if you heard nothing. My, how times change.

Fall has fell here. It is colder than an insurance adjustor’s heart out there. We have quickly gone from 65 or so to the low 50’s during the day and low 40’s at night, with rain and wind. I know my friends in New Orleans and Tucson think that is winter but we have a long way to go yet. It gets colder every day and, as a friend used to say, “It’s getting cold enough to freeze your goonies off."

Speaking of which, Mauro has cast his doom. Over the weekend we had mostly cold rain and wind. What with rising testosterone levels and him being a weather wimp, Mauro has humped himself into deep trouble. Not being walked a lot, he had a lot of extra energy and was especially aggressive, jumping and nipping at us and running around the house getting into trouble. Saturday morning, from the other room, I heard “okay, that’s it, your balls are history.” These words were uttered by the sweetest, kindest, most loving lady I know. Mauro is quite sweet and happy until he has one of his attacks and then his eyes glaze over and he starts jumping and nipping and humping. Well, this time, My wife’s eyes glazed over the same way as she swore to call the vet on Monday morning. While I have spoken on Mauro’s behalf before, one look at my darling’s determined face and I decided to keep my big mouth shut. Someone in this house was losing his goonies. And while, at this point in life, mine serve only ornamental purposes, they have been with me a long time and have a certain sentimental value. Having already lost two hips, I decided that I would like to finish life with the remaining parts intact. It was clearly either him or me and I decided it should be him. So, I took a leaf from Mauro’s book and hid in the corner under a table until the storm had passed. The date is set and, while he won’t “go under the knife”, he will get an injection that hopefully will calm him down some.

Mauro is the equivalent of a teenager at this point. I suppose that explains a lot. He is certainly at the point where, like a teenager, he can ignore you completely when you speak to him. Maybe that’s what they need in schools instead of Ritalin and anti-depressants, etc. When the boys hit puberty, give them one of those shots and keep them on it until they graduate (or at least until they leave home). I suspect that after a lifetime of dealing with high school kids my brother Bill would agree. Judging from what I see in the papers, perhaps some of the faculty and school board also need those shots

Monday was Mauro’s first Obedience Class. The good news is that he was not thrown out. He was, however, his usual exuberant, happy, social self. He tried to meet every dog in the class. When the instructor came near him, he did a little submissive pee on her foot, jumped up and tried to lick her face. She tried not to encourage him but, with Mauro, that is only an invitation for more. It will be interesting to see how we do as the school goes on. The problem is that Mauro learns so quickly that he gets bored with the new lesson and starts looking for something with which to entertain himself (note the lack of an ending preposition). That usually ends in disaster. I think our commands have the other people in the class a little confused. They are part Swedish and part English (or “Swinglish” as its known here). You may here “Sit” followed by “varsogod” or “Tull” (Finnish) when we call him. I guess that is Finglish.

Mauro now weighs 75 pounds and is 6 months old this week. I walk him at least two hours a day and sometimes more. Since he is still a puppy and still learning, and is so social and loving, that means I spend a large part of the time trying to maneuver him around people and obstacles. That takes a lot of muscle. I have worked very hard to stop his wildest bursts of enthusiasm; however, he is still a real handful. Also, when he goes into his humping mode, it is very difficult to walk with a 75 pound dog glued to your leg. All this exercise has been great for my rehabilitation but it is also tiring and, as I’ve said before, he recovers faster than I do.

His new teeth are working quite well. This has meant that we don’t get all the body piercing but it also means he has another tool that he uses on everything he runs into (“into which he runs” sounds stupid so I am violating the rule). He is still puppy enough to want to chew things and those teeth can really do some damage. All the hard rubber toys we bought him have suddenly been torn to shreds. They should last a long time but when he turns his mind to one of the toys it is quickly destroyed. He is quite strong. The trees around the building have rocks the size of cantaloupes in the ground around them as a border. Mauro has taken to rolling one of the stones, which weighs between 5 and 10 pounds, around with his paws and is almost able to pick it up in his mouth. I think my friends, whose daughter is raising Monarch Butterflies, have the right idea. While it is probably difficult to put one on a leash, they don’t chew the furniture or eat half a cow a day. Or, like the children next door to us, a rabbit. They have a beautiful large brown rabbit. They even have a leather harness and leash and take it for walks. My wife tells me that there are even rabbit agility contests like they have for dogs. This, of course, leads to the question, being rabbits, do they hump?

PS. The trainer at the obedience school suggested private lessons. We will start today.