Puppy power

I just put Esperando on the airplane to Korea where he will be working for the rest of the week. I was so happy when he was here this past weekend to catch up and have some help taking care of the new doglet. We keep wondering how the rest of our menagerie will adapt to Lupita, we are sure Sweet Pickle will be jealous, at least at first, but what will the cats do? We have been told that Chihuahuas want to be the dominant dog. As for the cats, Sour Pickle is not intimidated by much and is a pretty curious guy. I see photos of this but--do Chihuahuas and cats really get along well? I guess we will find out in a couple of weeks when we head back to Mexico.

After I dropped Esperando off at the airport, I went to physical therapy, and then ran a few errands before coming home. Lupita rode in her travel carrier in the car with me and basked in the sunshine when I went into therapy, and then again when I went into the store for a brief jaunt. It didn’t look as though she slept after I left her because every time I returned she was gnawing on the chewy toy that I left in the carrier with her. When I got home to take a nap she did her little snapping-turtle-under-the-covers routine, spinning around on her back and biting at various parts of my anatomy and clothing. She got more hyper and more hyper and kept trying to climb off the bed. I finally had to crate her in our bedroom to try and take my own nap. I laid there for the next 30 minutes wondering what she was doing. In the end I couldn’t sleep: I got up and released her. She had peed and pooped in the crate and then curled up on some bedding at the other end and was sleeping. I don’t know when this fouling up of her crate will end, at least this time she didn’t make much of a protest being put in there other than the physical evidence she deposited. I keep thinking this is either an anger thing or an anxiety thing and I don’t know how to deal with it.

After the aborted nap attempt, I decided it was time to take her for a walk around the park. Yesterday Esperando and I had a nice time walking with her. It took her about 10 minutes to seemingly understand wearing a harness and leash. One of us would walk in front and she would follow while the other held the leash. The walk we took is about a mile long and she must have walked almost half of it. We were pretty amazed such a little one could go so far. She seemed fairly tuckered out when we were done.

Today I did the same walk, but there was no Esperando to lead her while I walked in front. We had some difficulty moving forward and not fighting or dragging on the leash. A bicycle zoomed by and that freaked her out so badly I had to pick her up and carry her a good ways; more bicycles passed us, several in a row, and even though I was holding her she was terrified trying to climb up into the sleeve of my jacket. Once they passed by I put her down again and she walked fairly responsively for awhile, but she didn’t do as much walking as she had done the previous day. When we finally got near home she seemed to know where she was and had a conniption fit when I wouldn’t let her go up my neighbor's steps. I think she thought they were ours.

Finally she ran through our front door. She began to zoom around in circles and spent the next 3 hours literally racing around the house at 90 mph, upstairs, downstairs, through the living room, dining room and kitchen in circles, every once in a while, concerned she might need to pee I would open the back door and she would race around the backyard in circles. I don’t think I have ever seen so much continuous energy expended in my entire life by such a tiny creature except by hummingbirds. I was exhausted watching her. After she stopped doing circles, I threw the Trash Man doll, which is twice her size, and she must have retrieved him 50 times. If puppy energy could be stored we could solve all our electricity problems better than with oil, gas, wind farms, or hydroelectric power. Of course that would be a lot of puppies!