Flirting with Danger

You know how it feels to walk headlong into a gust of wind so strong you really have to lean into it in order to walk?

That’s kind of how I feel trying to keep Apollo from playing or doing anything that might pull on the stitches from his neuter last Thursday. The vet said 7-10 days of seriously reduced activity. We’re counting down, I tell you what. It’s like giving both these dogs a new toy (each other – they love to wrestle and play tag), and then telling them both they can’t play with it. But it’ll be over soon enough, and they can get back to the business of burning energy like they bought it at Costco.

It’s just as well I had all this extra vacation time to burn, since there would have been no way to keep them “quieter” if someone wasn’t home with them. I’ll be home another two days, and then hubby will work from home Weds, the last day before Apollo will be able to resume his normal activities.

That gives them only two days home alone this week too, which is a good thing as well. We switched our lunch break to an hour later so they’ll only be alone for 4 hours at a time, instead of 3 in the morning and 5 in the afternoon. Until Apollo matures out of puppy stage, that might help him to not be so destructive. We’ll see.

As far as the landscaping goes, our plants are in, and our lights are ordered, so things are moving along! It’s muddy out there today, due to rain this past weekend, but I’m sure our landscaper will get going as soon as things dry out a bit more.

So what am I doing with my vacation days while the dogs sleep? Puppy proofing is a main thing – clearing all flat surfaces of papers and things that would be fun for a nearly-year-old pup and a high-energy boxer girl to grab and spread all over the place. I started on the dining room table yesterday, and will finish that and move to the kitchen counter today.

Tomorrow I’d like to get started on our taxes. Super-fun. Not. But they have to be done.

And yes, I did break the rules and take the dogs for a short walk yesterday. After breaking up play sessions and trying to stop zoomies around the yard more than twice, it was either that, or they would have insisted on some potentially more damaging “energy-release” mechanism. There’s only so much I can do to keep all that energy in check…and walking is the least damaging of the activities they really want to engage in.

We’ll go again tonight for another short jaunt. I’m keeping a close eye on his stitches/incision to make sure everything looks okay and keeps healing like it should.

But pent-up energy is a dangerous weapon.

Jamie DeBree

Writer | DBA | Dog Wrangler