Adventures with the Pepper Pot

I survived my first full day of puppy sitting Pepper!! He truly is an adorable little dog and Darylynn you are right... I think I will be falling in love with having him here and won't want to give him back to my sister at the end. That's how I felt after puppy-sitting in Raleigh in April for another sister's dog, Buddy. I still miss the Budster!

So, as I left you yesterday I thought I'd die I was so tired from like 4 hours sleep. Well, my little canine companion complied (how's that for some alliteration) and we slept for another 90 minutes! We took about 3 walks around the block yesterday and it wasn't until our final walk at the end of the day that I got some poop out of the little pooch! (Warm poop in a bag isn't as gross as I anticipated - thank goodness for little dogs with their little poops!)

A couple of cute things happened yesterday to share (and I apologize in advance for this little ball of fluff taking over my blog for the next 10 days... you can see I live a VERY exciting life in the summer and have nothing else to really say - hee hee)

First, we live in a condo townhouse complex meaning, we own in the inside of our home but the outside is taken care of by the condo corp. This also means that our backyards are not enclosed so there is a "common area" running through the backyard so we can't fence ourselves (or a pet) in. This also means that when Pepper needs to go out potty, I have to leash him and take him out myself as opposed to at his home where my sister lets him out the door alone to do his business. Well yesterday, we went out back a few times and each time I would close the sliding door behind me as we went outside. Sometimes it was the screen door, other times the glass door. Poor Pepper isn't used to the whole glass door thing and one time as we head back inside he didn't realize the glass door was there and WHOMP... smacked his little noggin on the door. I felt so bad for him but he just shook it off like the trooper he is!

Then, later in the afternoon we let him upstairs in our bedroom as hubby finished his much needed nap (going to work at 4:30am took it out of him yesterday). I had pulled up all the garbages in the bathrooms after finding out that dogs LOVE to rifle through garbage (cats can be so much easier!) so I didn't think much of Pepper being in our ensuite. Hubby says to me a few minutes later, "What is Pepper eating?" "I dunno" I replied and went to investigate, only to find 1/2 a Q-tip. Oops! I couldn't open his mouth to get the remainder of what he was chewing on (I'm a scaredy cat when it comes to animals' mouths, particularly when they are eating something!). I hoped he'd be okay and later went to google it and found that this is a quite frequent delicacy of many a dog out there. Luckily it was a paper Q-tip and not one of those made with plastic.

And now for a little Pepper entertainment:

Pepper loves his yellow duck and if you ask him to find the duck he'll know where it is and go find him. Unfortunately, the other thing Pepper loves to do to his yellow duck is ... well... inappropriate for male dogs to do to anything, particularly neutered males... if you get my drift! Yesterday when I found him humping the poor duck I took it away from him for awhile. The little smartie pants knew exactly where I'd put the duck (on the table) and was trying to figure out how to "rescue" his friend. Then, when he couldn't reach him and "mean Auntie Sue" wasn't giving him back, Pepper would lie on the floor and pout. What a little personality this cutie has! Eventually (about 20 minutes later) I gave Pepper the duck back and so far I haven't seen him hump him again!

Last night we left Pepper for the first time at our home, encaged in the kitchen in his gate. He barked like crazy as we were getting ready to go but was beyond excited (and no barking) when we got home. We'd gone to the movies to see Sandra Bullock's new movie, The Proposal. You know how often times you go see a movie that looked hilarious in the trailers only to find that you'd already seen all the funny parts? Not the case with this movie. Sandra and Ryan Reynolds played off one another so well and the script was well written (at least I thought so) and it was non-stop laughs... with a little sentimental tear tugging to go with it. The actor who plays the character, Oscar, from The Office was in the movie too and was hysterical! He's obviously learned from watching Steve Carrell at work on comedy timing! If you want a really fun night of laughs this is the movie to see right now!

Pepper slept with me again last night in the guest room and he even slept in until after 9am. Right now he's flaked out beside me on the sofa. Think I'm wearing him out with all the play and walks? Tonight he is going to try sleeping in our bed with hubby and me! Hubby just may warm up to the idea of a dog yet ;-)

This afternoon my BFF and her daughter (our god-daughter) are coming. We're babysitting Little Miss "H" tonight while "P" goes to her step-mom's 50th bday "girl's night out". Should be a busy evening between "H" and Pepper! If I'm sane I'll update again tomorrow!