Approaching Storm

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We haven’t had many snowstorms this winter, and this looks as though it may be the first significant one. I went out early to the grocery store, and have some beef stew cooking in the crock pot. It is snowing heavily as I write this. This storm is coming from the north, and they are forecasting up to two feet of snow for our micro-clime.

Socialization

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I’ve been concerned with getting Orion socialized with younger children because I don’t have access to younger children.  I have been taking him up to children (accompanied by their parents) in the Petco store and asking if they want to pet him, but hadn’t actually been able to turn him loose with kids.  Yesterday, Orion finally got to play with some kids who are used to lots of different kinds of animals and everyone had a good time.  As the kids’ grandmother said, “He doesn’t seem to distinguish between big people and short people.”  For Orion, there are no strangers, just friends he hasn’t met yet. 

Clean Puppy

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Orion received a bath today. Unfortunately he doesn’t look much different when he is clean than dirty, but he does feel and smell better now. It took about five minutes to prep the area, and ten minutes to wash the puppy during which Rion cooperated fairly well, and didn’t attempt to jump out of the wash tub and dash himself against the concrete floor of the mudroom. The towel drying took a while, because Rion thought we were playing tug of war with the towels. However, the most difficult part of the job was putting his collar back on. I finally had to wrap him in a towel to immobilize him to do so.   I did attempt to brush him out.  That was good for giggles, but not every effective.

Rion’s favorite solitary sport is digging out the varmint holes in the dog run. His favorite team sport is being rolled around in the dirt by his friends Cheney and Brody. I don’t expect him to stay clean very long. However, to judge from the black rinse water, he really needed this bath.