Establishing the Hierarchy

I have been a bad blogger.

I have, however, been a very good puppy mama, and a pretty good nanny, so I'm excusing myself.

There are quite a few pictures of the new puppy on
The Year of the Nanny, so head on over if you haven't already.

It's been funny watching the household shift with the new addition. Maurice is doing very well, except that he's neurotic about his food bowl and her food bowl and what might be the difference. My thumb felt the consequences of the first feeding altercation. From then on, we've set the bowls about six feet apart, and one of us supervises feeding time to keep the natives from getting too restless! Even Mark and I have to readjust. In order to give the dogs breakfast, and give them some play time before it's crate time again, I get up at 6, take everyone out, feed them, and play with them until 6:30, when Mark is ready for work. He watches them until he leaves at 6:45, then I come back down from showering, etc, and take them out one last time before leaving for work at 7... Makes me sleepy in the afternoons.

It's worth it, though. She's a great dog. She's spunky and silly, but not very high maintenance, which, after a pug (though I do love him madly) is a relief! They play really well, so in some senses, by getting another dog, we've rendered ourselves obsolete.

We're still trying to find a competent dog walker, since the flake who used to walk Maurice is currently unavailable, so we have two interviews next week. Until then, one of us will cover the midday feeding/walking session. With the freezing and thawing and snowing of the last ten days, our backyard is starting to look like the streets of Deadwood, and our floors are a disaster (hooray for plywood subflooring - indestructible), never mind the fact that policing the poop is difficult when it's freezing, thawing, raining, snowing, etc... icky.

It's fun to be back on the top of the heap, though. I am pack leader, hear me bark!