Little Curtis, my new Golden Doodle puppy has been peeing and pooping outside for the most part. I’m still not confident enough to let him just roam free throughout the house but he is turning out to be a pretty smart and fairly quick learner. I’m still working on the chewing thing. For some reason, he likes my old mail. I have a stack of mail that sits in this basket on my floor in the living room and it’s like he has turned into a mail monitor. If he has the chance, he will go get a letter or two and take them somewhere and try to open the mail for me if I give him the chance.

As soon as we get back from the Kidd’s Kids trip, I want to teach him a trick that an old friend showed me a long time ago that she had taught her dog. She would just point her finger at the dog and say, “Bang Bang” and the dog would collapse on the floor and roll over a couple of times. It was like a roll over and play dead in dramatic fashion. But is was so cool. And there is the “signal” that some people have taught their dogs. They have some type of bell attached to the front door knob and when the dog needs to go outside,, they would go and ring the bell. Please keep in mind that I have never actually “taught” a dog to do ANYTHING. These are merely things that I WANT to teach my new dog. In the past, I haven’t even been able to teach a dog to fetch. Maybe they would go get the ball, but they never bring it back to me. So, clearly, the dog trainer, needs to be trained. But it really is nice knowing that when I get home after work, there is a cute doggie waiting on me to get there. I’m not sure if I’m going to be a “dog in the bed person.” In the past, I haven’t been. But my girlfriends Chihuahua practically lives in the bed, on the couch, pretty much anywhere that she wants. But then again, it’s a Chihuahua. When it’s a bigger dog, things are a little different. There’s a limited amount of room for a big guy. Not to mention if I happen to have my girl over for a sleep over. But I really don’t know how I can have one dog in the bed and tell the other one NOT in the bed. How does that work? Hmmmn. How will this work? I know I have to make a decision and stick to it. and it doesn’t matter now because he is too small to jump up there. But it won’t take long for him to get his leaping ability. I know one couple that has a huge Lab and he sleeps between them every night. How the heck does that work? What about sexy time?

OK, it’s happening in two days. We will leave for the Kidd’s Kids trip and for the first time, Kidd isn’t going. The Emotions are going to be all over the place. This trip will undoubtedly be the most difficult of all. But what we have to do is to make sure that the kids have a great time. We can’t make this a sad trip because Kidd isn’t there. The whole purpose of this trip is for kids to forget about their troubles and hospital visits and whatnot and to have a Magical time. So, that is our goal. Sure there will be sad moments but we have to make sure that the Happy moments, by far, outweigh the sad moments!

We can do this.