So when I finally got Boomer home, the very first day, he fell asleep in the middle of living room and stayed there for 2-3 hours, giving me more than enough time to grapple with a hideous case of buyer’s remorse/OhwhatthehellhaveIdone!

One of the first things you notice about puppies is their incredibly sharp teeth. Like needles, they are. And Boomer, very quickly (like instantaneously), developed a toe fetish. He’d never met a toe he didn’t like…or want to put in his mouth.

So almost as instantaneously, I developed a shoe fetish and wore close-toed shoes whenever I was awake, in lieu of having my toes attacked for a little while. Like a good six months.

The other thing you notice about puppies is the stance they take when they are getting ready to let fly on your carpet. Boomer developed early on (and I identified) a very distinct lean which I usually saw just microseconds before he did his business. Needless to say, before I move this August, there will be some heavy-duty chemical steam-cleaning going on in ye olde apartment.

At this point in his development, Boomer was just a large head, one floppy ear, one vertical ear, four wobbly legs, and a large rib cage. I learned several things very quickly on our first attempt at leash-walking – 1.) the collar and leash I bought were way too heavy for him. He wandered around outside in the grass like Jacob Marley; and 2.) he was so small, he couldn’t even climb up curbs. Not being able to climb stairs, I was expecting. Not being able to climb curbs, I was not.

He also had, come to find out after our first vet visit, hookworms. The vet prescribed some kind of fluorescent goo I was to squirt into his mouth when we got home. So I took Boomer home, gave him the medicine, put him in his box (this is night #2 for us), and I thought all was well (there was no howling as there was on night #1). At 2 in the morning I woke up to the most piteous crying I’d ever heard from any type of animal, wounded or not. Half-asleep, I stumbled over to Boomer and let him out, thinking he needed to go potty. We went outside and he did nothing. So I took him back inside, wondering what the hell was wrong. I turned on the lights, and what did I behold in his box…well words can’t simply describe the horror. Suffice it to say that what the vet didn’t tell me is the fluorescent goo was actually a purgative. An incredibly STRONG purgative. I was warned I shouldn’t make this excessively gross, so here we go: a poop grenade went off in Boomer’s box, with Boomer in it. We’re talking halfway up the walls of the crate. I cleaned him up, cleaned up his box, and wondered aloud to myself, “And this is only night #2!” I put him back to bed and he conked right out. If I had pooped like that, I’d probably need a nap, too. I went back to sleep hoping and praying that night #3 doesn’t involve howling at the moon or explosive bowel movements.

The next day, the vet office does a follow-up call to see how Boomer is doing, and I inform them of the nasty surprise I had received at 2AM.

They laughed.

More to come…