Welcome, Rufus!

The newest addition to our home is a half-bichon, half-poodle mix of ~1 year my husband named Rufus! He's a rescue dog we'd been looking at and finally met and brought home this past weekend. He can get pretty energetic, and definitely has the ability to break out into a pretty solid sprint, but today drug his bed over next to my husband and lay down inside it. Adorable. His demeanor is sweet, his fur is soft, and his breath is puppy. He loves being around people, but he'll have to hang out inside his own house when we aren't around as he's not entirely house-trained yet.

I took him for a walk yesterday and noticed him chewing on something. When I opened his mouth, I found bright green gum. Yuck! I had to fish it out by sticking my hand in my dog's mouth to retrieve someone else's previously chewed gum. I can see why they say this is training for children! When we got home, he was still getting familiar with the house, taking his time sniffing everything, and I noticed he was chewing something. He found my husband's trash can and inside it: gum! Again! Now I'm fishing my husband's gum out of my dog's mouth. Not as eww as a stranger... but still pretty ew!

Today, Rufus went to the vet to get checked out. We noticed he hadn't done a #2 in a while and when I walked him yesterday he ate a lot of grass. So after he tinkled all over the table in the private examination room, he puked (the eating grass usually makes them do that. It's supposedly some part of their digestion). Poor thing! My husband isn't enjoying that part of it much (he didn't grow up with pets, so the bodily function thing is that much grosser for him!), but I think he's amused with the pup's ability to dance (nearly walk!) on his hind legs, the way he scratches his back on the floor, and general affection. We both cracked up when Ruf got confused by the dishwasher and growled and barked at it as sternly as his 16lbs knows how.

People with pets tend to have better health: lower blood pressure, lower stress and anxiety, longer lives, and patients even improve better with animal help! Sounds like a pretty good reason to add a pup to our daily routine during grad school, when we can incorporate him into our free time and have him help us adjust to life in class while we also adjust to being around a new body!