what a good boy!

so it's been quite some time since a post went up. cox internet has not been very accomodating.

a lot has happened in the world of bowser in the past 10 days or so. he had his first overnight stay with gammy (aka dave's mom) and uncle elijah (aka dave's mom's bulldog) while mommy and daddy took a mini-vacation to misquamicut beach in rhode island. apparently all went well... we couldn't fit the crate in the car (and also we assumed there would be other people in the car) so it was bowser's first unsupervised time roaming around free in the house. uncle 'lijah was there, but honestly, I don't think he was much help. the two of them together are elimination factories (if you catch my drift). on sunday though, bowser was happy to see mom and dad and rewarded us by not peeing in the car. :) thanks bowser!

I find myself regularly reading my friend aimee's blog about her new daughter, sophie, and I feel as though I can relate to what she's going through. not that I think sophie is like a pet or anything, but more like bowser is just as much a handful of responsibility as a human baby is. and also, just in two weeks I've been able to see significant changes in bowser. bowser is already making great headway in the area of peeing. he is better about letting us know when he needs to go out, though the skill is far from perfected. he's holding it a little better too... no more needing to go out every 30 seconds... it's at least a full minute now. :) I kid, I kid... it can sometimes be about 20 minutes or so... sometimes more. I've noticed that at night before he goes to bed, he has to go out more frequently than if it were in the afternoon. also, when he's in the house, he's more likely to pee. I was outside laying in the grass reading (or rather unsuccessfully attempting to read) while bowser was running around and playing with his towel and for the hour or more that we were out there, he must have peed twice. one highly humorous thing I've noticed is that he gets so excited when someone comes home and is going to take him out of the crate, he kind of starts peeing. I want to get him a mini t-shirt that saying, "sometimes I pee when I'm excited". on another positive note, he is also getting to bed much better than he was just last week. I think that has something to do with the radio we've put next to his crate. I have it on NPR so that there is always something going on whether it be voices or classical music. he'll maybe bark for a few minutes then that's it. or at least I assume so... maybe it's just because I only hear it for a couple minutes before I fall asleep. :\ oops. overall, I'm happy that more often than not we're saying, "good boy bowser" and giving him treats. he definitely has a lot to learn still... no doubt about that. but he's only 11 weeks old. I'm not expecting the world!

lastly, we've been having more and more cross-species conflicts. the cats are definitely willing to come down the stairs and over the past few weeks have become visibly used to his (overly excited) existence. if dave or I hold the puppy, gabe will come downstairs and walk right past us rubbing up against our leg like nothing is up. jaeger will attept as well. of course, when bowser is in his crate, they are willing to move freely through the house as well (to which I say thank goodness because I would die if they peed on my fabric upstairs instead of in their litterbox). occasionally, jaeger will sit at the bottom of the stairs and just stare at the dog... I haven't decided if it's to think up ways in which to murder the poor thing or just because he's trying to understand his character (both of which are highly plausible for a cat). as soon as bowser sees the cat, he'll run over (obviously excited) because it's something on his level that he can play with, right? jaeger then gets all defensive and runs up to the fourth stair and continues to stare (and add a low cat growl for effect) while bowser cocks his head to the side and whimpers because he doesn't understand why this thing doesn't want to play with him. we try to explain to bowser that the cats could honestly beat him up if they wanted to exert the energy so he really needs to take it slow with them... but he's not really getting it. someday dog and cats will live in harmony. I hope I'm alive to see the day... :)