A Three Dog Night

This post is not about a cold winter evening in Norway or a Rock & Roll group from the 70's. It's about the animal population of my house. As of 8PM tonight we now own 3 dogs. Let's go back to the beginning.

Ten weeks ago I posted an article about my son and his fiance getting a new puppy named "Gavin." To make a long story short tonight Gavin came to our house to live. The puppy needs a place to run around and we have a good size back yard where he can do that. He also has a couple of new companions in Dory and Angel, the dogs we already have. He's not quite house broken so I knew if he came to live with us it was going to be a task to get him trained.

Also, I was really concerned about the introduction of the puppy to the established territory of the other two. My anxiety wasn't eased at all when I found an online article that advised that if you had 3 dogs it qualified as a "pack." Different rules of behavior would have to be established from the beginning for us as owners to stay in control. There was also a concern about introducing a male into a house with 2 female dogs.

When I brought Gavin to the house we allowed the dogs to get acquainted by putting him in his crate and letting the other two sniff around and "check him out." Then we put Dory & Angel in their crates and let Gavin do the same.

After they were a bit familiar with each other we put them together for the first time in our living room. Gavin and Angel immediately began to play with each other. They romped around and wrestled each other with their tails wagging the whole time. Dory took some time to sniff out this new comer but she didn't seem all that interested in getting in on the playtime.

Just as I was getting to feel rather confident and thought "hey this is going to be pretty easy" Gavin brought me back to reality with 2 "accidents." One on the living room rug and the other on the carpet in the computer room. Each of these happened after trips outside to walk around the backyard with no "restroom" activity achieved. Oh well, it's going to take some time and patience.

I have already decided on a middle name for our new puppy. You see each of my other two dogs have middle names. There's "Dory Elizabeth" and "Angel May". Having middle names makes for serious verbal emphasis when correcting them just like my mother used to do to me.

Although I was never a big fan of the show The Love Boat that's where I found our puppy's new middle name. The actor who played the captain was also named "Gavin." That's why our new guy's middle name is "Macloud" Can't you just hear me saying it? "Gavin Macloud, don't chew on that slipper!"

I have yet to take any new pictures of our pup. He's grown quite a bit since the picture on the August 25 post. He's now about 16 pounds. I will put up some pics when I've got some.

Now some of you might be asking why would we ever decide to take on a 3rd dog in our home. There are several reasons and here are a few. Because he's already part of the family I couldn't see Gavin going anywhere else to live except within our family. In addition, he's a beagle and I've always wanted one. We thought Dory was a beagle when we got her but she's more of a hound dog than anything.

Finally I realized very quickly tonight that in addition to a crate, some chew toys, and a bag of puppy chow something else came with Gavin that I didn't expect: exercise. I'd forgotten just how much you have to walk a puppy when training them. By the time it was time to put the dogs in their crates for the night I was pretty tired from walking Gavin in the backyard twice. So it looks like that exercise program my doctor has been encouraging me to begin will begin out of necessity. Be careful what you wish for.

Anyway that's the story of Gavin coming to live with us and our first "3 dog night." I know there's a lot more adventure to come because of the training Gavin requires. Oh by the way we haven't even told our cat yet.