Oh My Dog!

This is Stanley:

Stanley is utterly adorable. He’s also very, very small. Here’s Stanley next to Lucas:

He spent the day with us yesterday. Little Stanley is only 8 pounds, literally 1/10th the size of Lucas.

It was a great day for the boys to have a new little buddy to play with. Mostly Lucas tried desperately to get Stanley to play, while Stanley was mostly interested in getting Emmett to play. Emmett did not want to play. Emmett wanted to bask in the sun.

I spend a lot of time on a typical day tripping over Emmett and Lucas. They run past me on the stairs, pop up the instant I scoot my desk chair back, follow me to the bathroom. They hover in the kitchen when I make my lunch, and squeeze themselves under my desk to nap while I work. They’re always underfoot, and due to their size, we three spend a lot of our days bumping into each other. But not Stanley. I guess being such a little guy, you get quick on your feet to ensure that no one steps on you. Plus, little dogs are wonderful at snuggling in a little fur-ball on your lap.

And, is there anything cuter than a teeny little pup hanging with the big guys?

On an unrelated tangent, if you have a moment and are looking for a little light reading, click on over to the Working with Pets site to read my guest post, 5 Steps to Launching Twitter for Your Pet Business. I’d love to hear what you think. Do you use Twitter? Have you had much success that particular tool? Better success with others? Feel free to comment here or over on Working with Pets!

And on a related sidenote, I have a couple awesome guest blog posts coming up. So exciting! As you can see above, I now have a nifty little tab about guest posts. If you’re interested in contributing a guest post, I’d love to hear from you! Check out the tab above for all the details.

My parents, who live about 90 minutes from us, are on vacation. So for this week, my mom’s little dog Otto is staying with us. Otto is a one-year-old bichon/shih tzu mix with the funniest little underbite. He just adores Lucas, and Lucas loves him, too, though Lucas tends to tire out long before Otto. With the three dogs, it’s a pretty funny dynamic around the house.

Big friend and little friend

Lucas is a trim 75 pounds; Otto is a porky little 12 pounds. Despite their size differences, they play together most of the day, wrestling, tugging, chasing. Lucas is really amazing at self-handicapping.

Although he usually lets Otto win, which has led Otto to think that he’s much, much stronger than he really is.

Emmett… he doesn’t mind Otto, and occasionally he lets on that he might actually like him, but mostly, Emmett is just happy to hang on the sidelines and watch Lucas and Otto duke it out. But I did catch them snuggled up a couple times today!

Otto is a pretty easy dog. He has great recall and is a generally happy fellow. The hard thing, though, is that his set of rules and boundaries are completely different from the rules I have for my guys. It’s difficult to decide whether or not to teach him the rules (i.e. out of the kitchen while I’m cooking) or just let it go for the week. Of course, as soon as Emmett realized Otto is in the kitchen while I’m cooking, he slips right in trying to get away with it, too!

Overall, Otto is doing great. It’s tough for any dog to be away from his people and his home, with all different routines and rules. He settled in pretty much right away, in large part because he worships Emmett and Lucas and just does whatever they do!

He’s here until Saturday, and I’m sure it’ll be an easy week. Although… Lucas will probably sleep for three straight days after Otto leaves!