I never thought this song would ring so true with who Ruten is. Ruten is the 9 week old Aussie I just adopted from Clos du Silence, an excellent breeder of Québec. Ruten is all about silence, coiled strength and loyalty. He is not a dog who will have many owners, many close-to people. He is at the point of liking everyone I present him to, but he always goes back to me.
A friend had him walk on leash yesterday night and Ruten kept showing at my heel, checking in before running to my friends ahead of me. He would stop, check behind and then go, in true shepherd fashion.
Owning a puppy is stressful and oh god it will give me an ulcer. The work I have to put on him is incredible. He is an anxious dog, to the point of having diarrhea when we’re too many in the house, but instead of sleeping in his crate like he used to do the past week, he kept wanting to sleep under my chair. No problem with that. I’m his safezone and although I didn’t intend it, I’m ok with that.
Comparing Ruten to Kami is impossible. Ruten is soft, gentle and has a moderate energy level. Kami was an extreme in everything. Ruten is 10 times as smart as Kami was and that WILL be a problem later on, because that intelligence needs to be useful or else I’ll have a monster on my hands.
Having a puppy at home also tells me that, holy crap I’m not ready to have babies of my own. I think I’ll leave that to all the good mother material around, because my patience is enough for a puppy, but for a child? NOT SURE. I’m way too happy to sleep in when the pup is sleeping in as well. Or just the regular freaking out when your pup doesn’t have normal poop, wondering if it’s bloody parvo of another virus he picked up at the park… and then you remember you caught your dog in the cat’s litter last night and you know he ate one poop.
We have the routine of: you sleep in your crate from 11pm to 5am. When the alarm clock rings at 5am, I open the door of your crate and you come sleep in bed with me. He likes to sleep all stretched out against my leg, with his head on the window ledge. That usually lasts 30min, before it’s time for that pee pee and that poo poo.
Having a puppy showed me just how unhappy I had been in the past few months, because I perked up, because now I know what ‘happy’ is or what ‘sadness’ means. I still wasn’t sure when I went to pick up Ruten if this was the right choice, because I was mighty worried it would cause trouble, but then I looked at his face the first night and I knew this was the right decision.
I will never forget Kami and what she taught me. I need to use what I learned to help Ruten overcome his fears, but he is a wonderful dog and this is the perfect age. He likes to play with other dogs (even if that implies humping them - we are working on that) now, while at first he really, really was scared of them. He loves to chase his ball, freesbies, wheels or bone and he brings it back already (he’s smart, he knows I’ll toss it again)
With Ruten, doing agility, freesbies trials, cani-cross, ski jöring and horseback riding are all options. I can’t wait to get through the ridiculous 1 year.
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