Daisy Sue Update

Going off topic again! I don’t plan to turn this chess blog into a pet blog, but I thought some of you might like an update on how Daisy, the new puppy, is doing. Plus, more pictures! After all, what’s the point of having a cute puppy if you can’t post cute puppy pictures?

First news flash: Daisy is still as cute as ever. The floppy ears are an especially nice touch. They might stand up when she gets older, but we hope not.

Daisy has proved to be quite adept at the Head Tilt. This is a proven technique to make humans fall in love with you. Here she demonstrates both the Right Head Tilt and the Left Head Tilt.

Here’s a picture my wife took that I call the Ultra Head Tilt. Kay kept making funny clucking noises that made Daisy more and more puzzled, until finally…

Max (the cat) and Daisy are getting along very well, much better than we expected. Actually, having Daisy in the household has made me appreciate Max more, because he is so calm and patient… and he doesn’t have house-training accidents.

Daisy had her second vet appointment yesterday, and we’re pleased to report that she has gone up from 4.4 pounds to 5.3 pounds in her first month with us. The vet predicts that she will eventually weight around 10 pounds, but we don’t really know.

I haven’t played chess with Daisy yet, but she did “help” me a couple days ago by stealing away some pieces as I was setting the board up. You don’t really need a pawn on h2, do you?

Having a new dog is always an adventure and a learning process, even if you’ve had one (or many) before. Every dog has her own quirks. Here are some of Daisy’s:

• She screams when you give her a shot. When the vet’s assistant took her back for her vaccination, Kay and I gave each other a knowing look. Sure enough, thirty seconds later there came the most terrified yelping — you would have thought they were torturing her. Now that we know this is just the way she is, it’s sort of funny. But of course we don’t know what happened to her before she came to the shelter. It could be that she had some experiences that weren’t funny at all that made her ultra-touch-sensitive.
• She prefers eating food out of my hand to eating out of a bowl. She will eat out of the bowl, but only as a last resort. She wants me to sit on the floor, so she can sit on my lap, and so that I can scoop the kibble out of the bowl one mouthful at a time into my hand. This makes it ever so much tastier.
• She is a very sound sleeper. She still spends the night in the crate, but she snuggles with Kay in bed before bedtime, and I practically have to pry her out of bed. She gets so catatonic that she doesn’t move a muscle. Daisy, that is. Although Kay is pretty catatonic too…

Bedtime.

Okay, for all you non-dog-lovers out there, I’ll get back to chess next time, and you won’t be subjected to any more cute dog pictures… for a few weeks at least.