Puppy Update

As of July 19, Max is officially 7 months old. On Sunday, he was thrilled to experience his first visit to our local dog park. At first, he was fascinated by the other dogs, running along beside them and looking for new ones to meet. Whether big dog or little dog, it didn't seem to matter; he loved them all. After just a few minutes, however, all Max cared about was greeting each of the people at the dog park. He seemed to enjoy being petted and having his reddish coat admired by these new people so much that we almost wondered if he would try going home with someone else! At the end of the day, though, he was still ours... And he sure slept well that night. (On a side note, I never realized that Albuquerque had a social network revolving around the dog park. People seemed to know the names of dogs that weren't their own -- the "regulars", they called them. They even discussed the dogs' backgrounds and personality traits. Hmm.)

Then, yesterday, we discovered that Max is a hunter. We had a summer monsoon that dumped large raindrops for roughly an hour. Afterward, Max wanted to run around outside and explore the puddles. All of a sudden, I heard a disturbing chirping/squeaking noise. I ran outside, and Max pranced by me with a feather sticking out the side of his mouth. To my dismay, he'd captured a bird and given it a terminal prognosis. While I was able to convince Aaron to take the poor creature away from Max and put it out of its misery, I think he was a little proud that our puppy actually caught something. I suppose that is pretty impressive for a city dog.

Stay tuned for Max's next adventure -- doggie daycare.