Jabulani

Todd named the dog: Jabulani. It means rejoice, happiness, etc. Why I ever let him name the dog this, I don't know. She was so cute those first few days, maybe it was a weak moment. Who knows. What I do know is that no one who has a 7-month-old puppy they are trying to train, in tandem with a 13-month-old they are also trying to train, would put the words "rejoice" or "happiness" with the ridiculousness of that puppy.

Now, before you go judging Lani, know this: she is excellent with Em, she is friendly to new people and she is very well-behaved for her age and breed. She sometimes does crazy things though. Last night, I woke up at 2:30 am, not because Murray was waking me up kicking, as is generally the case, not because Em had a bad dream, but because the dog was whining so loudly, we could hear it upstairs through two closed doors. Todd went to check on her, only to find that she had eaten half her new wool blanket (that I just bought because the tile floor is so cold). That's frustrating, but puppies chew, and she generally doesn't, so if it's a blanket and not the couch, I'll take it.

Then, after lunch, the sunshine lured Em and I into the backyard with the dog. Em was playing her game of "find fun things and bring them to Mommy." I had just finished spending two hours cleaning the living room of dog hair. We bought a lab instead of a retriever because of this specific issue, but she is shedding like crazy. So we're in the backyard, Em is taking about 3-4 minutes to find something interesting and get it back to me. I figured I could use that time effectively by brushing the dog to get some of the shedding under control. I told her to sit, and she did. I started brushing and she immediately laid down. Now, remember, I'm seven months pregnant. My belly isn't as big as when I was carrying Em, but it's still a seven month belly. I can't bend that far for longer than a nano second. So, we started over again. She got up, sat, I started brushing and she laid. I knew that dog breeders will often pull the skin at the base of the rump by the tail (same place we tug on sheep when you show them) to get them to stand up. Rather than stand, the dumb dog curls her legs completely up! I was mortified because what started as a gentle tug, she had suddenly turned into me holding up half her body by skin!! We talked, we tried again, and this time was slightly more productive. Em, meanwhile, has completely lost interest in the shinny rock she was heading towards and is perfectly content watching Mommy struggle with Lani, clapping her hands (making Lani think she wanted her to come) and squealing for joy. This continued for longer than I care to admit, but we finally got a decent amount of hair and my back was killing me, so we were done. Lani, whom I think I've traumatized (because I'm still traumatized!) from the first standing attempt, goes running off and gets her toy to play fetch... like nothing happened. Crazy how short the attention-span or memory of a young one is.