14 months of dog
Mar. 10th, 2010 03:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
serenissimaMungo has been with us for fourteen months today. I wanted to post an entry commemorating the one-year anniversary of our adopting him, on January 10. The fact that I haven't posted anything about our dog since the baby was born speaks to what's been going on in his life.
Mungo has been doing without daily walks for around five or six months now, except for a couple of weeks last fall when my father walked him while my parents were staying with us. In my last trimester, walking the dog was a physical hardship for me; with a newborn, I had no time. He seems to have resigned himself to the change: last summer, an unwalked dog was a hyperactive dog in the evenings. Now, he spends most of the day lounging around and snoozing. I felt sad and guilty when I realized how his behavior had changed, but his not being a pest does make life easier for us. I'm finally getting to the point where I can do one or two things besides simply make it through the day, so I'm trying to get in at least a short walk to the mailbox (at the end of the street) each day.
We've shown the dog to the baby and the baby to the dog a few times. Mungo sniffs politely but doesn't seem to be interested in our whelp; he's more concerned with us, trying to get us to pet him, play with him, and rub his belly. Whelp, for his part, is only just now becoming aware enough of his surroundings to be curious about the pup. The other day he put his hand on Mungo's nose. Mungo stood still for this, maybe because it was something like being petted. I'm hopeful that they will be good friends when our child is older, but I also wonder about our dog's lifespan. He's already five years old. Will he be tired and slow by the time the boy is big enough to run around outside with him?
Mungo has been doing without daily walks for around five or six months now, except for a couple of weeks last fall when my father walked him while my parents were staying with us. In my last trimester, walking the dog was a physical hardship for me; with a newborn, I had no time. He seems to have resigned himself to the change: last summer, an unwalked dog was a hyperactive dog in the evenings. Now, he spends most of the day lounging around and snoozing. I felt sad and guilty when I realized how his behavior had changed, but his not being a pest does make life easier for us. I'm finally getting to the point where I can do one or two things besides simply make it through the day, so I'm trying to get in at least a short walk to the mailbox (at the end of the street) each day.
We've shown the dog to the baby and the baby to the dog a few times. Mungo sniffs politely but doesn't seem to be interested in our whelp; he's more concerned with us, trying to get us to pet him, play with him, and rub his belly. Whelp, for his part, is only just now becoming aware enough of his surroundings to be curious about the pup. The other day he put his hand on Mungo's nose. Mungo stood still for this, maybe because it was something like being petted. I'm hopeful that they will be good friends when our child is older, but I also wonder about our dog's lifespan. He's already five years old. Will he be tired and slow by the time the boy is big enough to run around outside with him?
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Date: 2010-03-10 10:43 pm (UTC)