Duncan Checking In

Hello everyone!  Several of you have been asking me how Duncan is, and I realize I've been remiss in not writing about him lately.  I haven't had time to write about him because I've been too busy trying to keep up with him.  I believe he has been our most challenging Scottie yet.  Part of it, I think, is that it's been 25 years since we had an eight-week old puppy, and we had forgotten just how much work they are.

You'll notice he's grown quite a bit.

Potty training is always a hassle.  I believe there are some breeds (or so I'm told) who catch on to this within a matter of days or a couple of weeks.  Not Scottish Terriers -- take it from me.  None of ours have ever gotten housebroken quickly.  It's because they have extremely hard little noggins.  Yes they do.  :)  They are certainly intelligent, but they tend to do what they want to do, which doesn't always coincide with what we want them to do.  We are having some success with the potty training, and we know we just have to keep working at it and he'll eventually get it right.

The thing that has been most difficult for us to deal with is his biting and "back talk."  Even though puppy teeth are smaller, they are still very sharp and they can do some damage.  This incessant biting is the area in which he differs from our previous two Scotties.  When we went to Charleston, he stayed with a lady who works at our vet and does dog-sitting on the side.  I like her and trust her implicitly with him.  She said the dog she kept was nothing like the one I've described.  There were no biting issues and no sassing; in fact, she texted us while we were in Charleston and said she was tempted to keep him.  Hmmm.

Since he was so well-behaved for Linda (and I know she wouldn't make this up), I just decided that we must be doing something wrong.  I've borrowed my mom's Cesar Milan (the Dog Whisperer) book; I made a few changes, and things are going better.  In addition, he's lost about five of those razor-sharp puppy teeth, which really helps.

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But (as Linda pointed out) they grow back.  :-D  The adult teeth, however, are not as sharp as the baby teeth.  The bottom line is that terriers are a handful, especially Scottish Terriers.  However, Bonnie and MacDuff matured into very good pets, and we loved them dearly.  I feel sure things will work out with Mr. Duncan, too.

Now for the upside, he's done some really funny things over the last several weeks.  One of our favorites is "the turtle shell."

     

See this bed?  It's fairly deep, and for awhile, his favorite trick was flipping it upside down.  One day I happened to look over and see the upside down bed moving across the floor.   After a minute or two, his head popped out the other side and he kept on going with the bed on his back.  Hubby and I started laughing, and he kept going until he ran into the speaker stand.  My husband said he was carrying his home on his back like a turtle.  Another time, I left the room for a few minutes, and when I came back, I couldn't find him anywhere.  I checked under the chairs and on the hearth and no Duncan.

Turns out he was under this bed.  It was also turned upside down.  He is definitely a little clown at times.  :)  

I recently bought him some new stainless steel bowls in a stand.  Our dogs do better with elevated bowls because they eat so fast, they tend to get choked when they have to bend over too far to eat their food.  Duncan was not fond of these new bowls.  They clang around some, which his ceramic bowls don't do.  He would jump back and bark and bark at the bowls at mealtime.  At first, he would only eat part of his food, and he refused to drink from the water bowl.  I finally realized he was seeing his reflection in the bowls, and he thought there was another dog in there.  :-D  After a few days, he got over that, and now he eats and drinks from the new bowls.

He's big enough to jump onto the sofa now (look out world) so we have to make him get down immediately.  We only allow our dogs on the sofa if they're sitting on our lap.  In addition, he's a bit of a shoplifter, this dog.  He loves to grab something he's not supposed to have and then he dashes around the room and down the hall with it.  I call it his Victory Lap, kind of like Nascar.  :)  I love to use Swiffer dusters to do a quick dust of my furniture and chair rail molding.  I had tossed a dirty one in the waste basket and he grabbed it and took off down the hall with it, head held high.  He's nabbed the plastic disposable gloves we use to clean up his little accidents, tissues out of the tissue box, the mouse for the laptop, socks, shoes, etc.

He adores his big brother, Will.  :)

The funniest trick he's pulled was when he swiped my husband Hal's wallet.  Hubby had it out on the sofa looking for something and he laid it back down.  We were watching television, and I finally realized Duncan was down the hall making a lot of snorting and rustling sounds.  I got up to look and saw that he had Hal's wallet.  Yikes.  I ran over and he already had the Sam's Club card out and was chewing on it.  Now the card won't work properly at the Sam's Club.  He went quickly from a toddler to a teenager who wanted Dad's wallet.  Today, I was planting flowers in containers on our porch, and he was "helping."  Dragging my spade around, sticking his head in the bag of dirt -- just a regular little handyman.  :)

Yep, he's definitely a cutie.

So that's our update on Duncan.  Once he's completely housebroken, that will be a huge hurdle behind us.  On Wednesday, he's going to the vet to get "tutored" -- rhymes with another word beginning with "n."  A link to this well-loved Far Side cartoon Here.  :)

Thanks so much for you visit and I've so enjoyed your comments on our Charleston pictures.  What have you been up to so far this summer?  I hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Denise