Guard Dog?

Zuzu has just survived her first “Daddy Business Trip”.

One of the reasons that I wanted a bigger, protective dog, is because Jim is starting to spend more and more time away from home.  I’m hoping that won’t continue, but after the year deployment last year, his monthly trips around the country this year, and his occasional short deployments planned in his next job, I decided if I was going to get a dog, I might as well get something that will bark at intruders and protect me on a walk, if necessary.

This week was the first week that Jim had to go away since Zuzu arrived and she did really well!  The first day she had a little bit of separation anxiety and wanted to follow me everywhere.  That was kind of amusing since she is normally quite independent and loves to sit outside in the backyard by herself.  Not that day!  She even tried to sit in my lap in my computer chair with her new chewy toy.  Only her front paws and head fit on top of me, but she was okay with that.

She slept great through the first night and woke me up the normal way in the morning- smacking me in the face with a giant puppy paw.  The second day was better.  We played a lot and walked a lot, but she didn’t mind if I left her side.

On one of our walks, I decided to take a trail instead of the normal path.  She loved that, but there was no one there but us, which was a little creepy for me.  Normally the trail is full of other people with dogs.  When we were quite a ways out, she turned around and barked.  There was a giant, very scary man, walking behind us.  I was completely freaked, and she refused to walk, so I pulled her off the trail and just looked straight at him and laughed that he was way more interesting to my dog than the trail was!  Much to my dismay, he came up and started to pet Zuzu.  I was really nervous and was bracing myself to perform my mad-ninja-skills if he attacked.  (I don’t really have any skills, but I was hoping that if he had any ill intent, I would at least be prepared and maybe Zuzu would use her sharp puppy teeth to help.)  He didn’t attack, and he told us to have a nice afternoon as he walked away.  I am looking forward to her becoming bigger and a little more scary looking!

The only other funny thing that happened while Jim was gone was that I learned to sleep in the middle of the bed so that puppy paws couldn’t reach my nose in the morning.  As per usual, Zuzu immediately outsmarted me and learned how to pull all of the covers off me with her teeth, so that I would wake up anyway!  Every time I think I’m one up on her, she proves me wrong!

Jim gets home this afternoon.  I can’t wait to see her greet him!