PUPPY THERAPY

Victor manages to grab and hold a wriggling slithery Loki before stepping on the scales with him. 28 kilos. We look at each other. At almost 6 months he’s gained 20 kilos since he came here, 2 months old. This is going to be a big dog.

At times inordinately cute and a total devil at other, Loki came to distract us from the quarantine. Until he came like a whirlwind and rocked the house with a new kind of energy we had no idea how set in our ways we were with 6-year-old Zaffy completely integrated with our routine, never doing anything wrong. According to this post forwarded to us, we’re very much in the velociraptor phase.

 

Once over his first baby hurdles, he set to grow at an alarming rate, until now, at 6 months, he’s long and leggy, quite skinny in spite of the enormous amount of food he wolfs down 3 times a day. He’s quite different than Zaffy. Even as a baby she was always supremely confident and totally focused on being played with. She had the sturdy body of an athletic working dog with a straight back, and we literally had to tire her out with running after the ball before we could call it a day. Not so Loki. He has a fine narrow, very dark head, with soulful dark eyes, set on a slender body covered with rough mostly black hair. He has large trembling jowls, and his posture is crouched like a show dog’s. His hind legs are still set at an angle, no doubt waiting to achieve full height, and when he runs from Zaffy he looks like a giant rabbit bouncing off with those crooked hind legs together. This gives him a speed advantage over the torpedo-like Zaffy, which is good, because in the heat of the chase, she can be quite overwhelming pinning him against a wall with terrible growls. Apart from an occasional squeal he doesn’t seem affected by this and is quickly ready to play again.

Now house-trained Loki has achieved independence and likes to walk around the house and grounds looking for projects. He will turn up in our upstairs offices with effusive greetings, climbing up and licking our faces, and then take off again down the stairs. He has perfected slithering through any door with that long skinny body. Alarmingly, he likes to chew and can wreck damage in a question of minutes (ex. rolled-up Persian rug now has a big bite on the edge) and we endeavor not to leave him unsupervised ever – hard to manage with this canny little dog. Outside projects include making a big mess of the water-bowls, where he drinks dipping his open mouth into the water, followed by his paws, whisking the water out until there’s nothing left. Then he takes the bowl between his teeth and carries it off to be hidden somewhere. He likes to shred big leaves within his reach, pulling them through his little white teeth, and has shown a particular fondness for our bromeliads – all of which have had to be relocated to higher places or fenced in.

 

Loki's last meal is at 5pm and he often gets a second wind then. This is when our patience begins to wear out, as he tears around, biting Zaffy or acting out, and we have to give him time-outs. Eventually he calms down, accepts that the active part of his day is over, and with a recently learnt giant leap, steals the place in the sofa next to me, which belonged to Zaffy.  Then his long thin body slumps into relaxation and his paws curl one on top of the other. His jowls shiver with each breath, and we say to each other, “Isn’t he cute? Isn’t he adorable?”