Ready for Rupert

I was at Ikea and saw this cheerful dog dish, and so bought it. In readiness for Rupert. I also bought a matching placemat for his feeding area. Actually, I bought two placemats -- I guess I'd be buying dog stuff in pairs now, so there wouldn't be any sibling rivalry, I told L later. He says I'm being a human parent. Ah, kids, two-legged, four-legged, what's the difference. Try tellling HRH she has to share her toys.

All right, about Rupert. C&G, our friends who already have Toby, a wiry fox terrier, were ready for a second dog. C found a smooth fox terrier pup, made all the arrangements to get it and when he went to get it, could not get out of his head the image of the remaining pup, all dirty, sad and alone in a cage. So he went back for it. What's another pup, he thought?

Well, the problem as C&G later found out, puppy poop increases exponentially. And poor Toby, the perfectly housetrained gentleman who'd rather bust a bladder than pee inappropriately. Every time Rupert and Colin got disciplined for housetraining violations, Toby would hide under the bed.

And then things got hairier. C had to go back to Japan for a while. And once again, G had to deal with a Toby emergency by himself when he wrenched a leg. And then Colin started pooping blood and that's two sick dogs, two puppies grappling with housetraining and only one pair of hands.

So the pups are up for adoption. Not an open adoption though, C will only let it go to friends or friends of friends. While they initially took the two pups to remove them out of a bad situation, they clearly weren't equipped to handle three dogs.

We knew we'd have Dog No 2 sometime. But I was thinking sometime would be next year, after having settled down into the new flat and enjoyed our space. Now, we're rethinking. And rethinking fast before G has a breakdown cleaning puppy poop.