I bring it upon myself

So, to add to the craziness of three children, one dog, a gecko and two fish, Todd and I have decided to adopt a puppy...we are gluttons! It is not doing him justice to call him a puppy, because he is larger than our other, full grown dog. He is a German Shepherd, or so we are told, but looking at his markings, we think he may have some Doberman or Rottweilier in him. Big Boy!!!

We decided to call him Clyde (there were three choices, Clyde, Bruce or Harvey), to keep the tradition of normal "man" names for our animals. Note: Wally and Jack the former dogs, Pete the dog, Scott the porch cat, Lloyd the deceased hamster... He is so much fun, sweet and sometimes just hysterical, except trying to train him not to pee in his cage or other various places in the house. We are living in a home of baby gates across the doorways right now. One of my students trained her dog to ring a bell when she needs to go out, and I am going to try that!

The kids love him, and Pete actually loves him, too. There is a whole lot of chasing going on right now in the house, round and round the kitchen, to the living room and back. Clyde is larger than Pete, and doesn't take corners as well, so we like to laugh about that. Maddy takes both of them by their collars and "walks" them through the kitchen. She is also very aware of the dog smells. "I smell pee," or "I smell poop," or even one day, "I smell cheese." (The cheese smell was the cleaning spray for the dog pee, I think.) She also has not figured out that if she runs, and the dogs chase her, at some point, she is going to get knocked down. You would think that after 3 or 4 times, it would register, but it must be the sheer joy of having the dogs following her.

So now, after all of the baby proofing of the house, and un-babyproofing this summer, we have to puppy-proof the house! Like I said, I bring it upon myself...WHY?