Fergus the Giant

Or Fergus the Annoying.

(I find that lately when I'm updating this I have a hard time keeping my thoughts together and writing in coherent sentences. Which is strange for me as I'm normally a decent author, while not in vein with "professionals". Today is just a little different than normal. I have written the post below abour 4 or 5 times with numerous revisions in order to get some sense made.)

Our dog absolutely loves everyone and everything. From cats and squirrels to strangers and garbage. Well, thats not exactly correct. I found out the weekend that he doesn't like cows. We went for a drive along the river valley to take some pictures of the fall folliage [which coincidentally sucks right now.] when I came across a patch of cows grazing on the grass. I got out and took some pictures of them before returning to the car. When I sit down the dog immediatly jumps on my lap so that he can see out the window, otherwise he can't see out side. He turns his head to the right and sees the cows.

He went ape shit. He totally lost it. This is coming from a dog who normally barks once or twice during the run of the day. He was barking for about 2 minutes after I pulled away from the farm and he couldn't see them any more. Its like he was barking just for the sake of barking. I made him sit on the floor the entire time as "punishment" for barking like that. I don't mind a single bark to tell me that there's something there, but when he does that for so long in such an enclosed space, it starts to hurt your ears after a while.

I've also come to discover that he doesn't like people when its dark outside and they're not walking in a light. I was out with him the other morning at 5 (because he woke me up by licking my arm pit) when a man was walking down the side walk and Fergs barked at him.

This weekend was a very "expressive" weekend for the puppy. He got to do a whole lot of things that he normally doesn't get to do:

1. Playing with my MIL's dog Max, who is 12+ years old and normally just barks and growls at Fergs. This weekend marked the first time in 3 months that the two played together.
2. He played with children, there are a few kids who live in our building who are just... assholes. And as a result, never really trusted Children much, but my wife's cousins were over and he was just great with them playing and running without biting them.
3. He received a visit from his best puppy friend Harley, the Aust. Cattle dog. Our friends recently moved out of town and we never see them much any more but the dogs had a great time while they were together.

This is probably a good time to mention that I've also done a few things with the dog that I said I would never do, and some that are still good.:

1. Never Sleep on the Bed: The dog started waking up at 4am to pee (really, he was just lonely) and would stay awake until 5am whining in his kennel. [Now you know how he ended up licking my arm pit to wake me up.]
   Period lasted: 3 months.
   
   
2. Never Give Him People Food: I hate it when a dog sits beside you and wants what you're having. This will probably be the only thing that I'll stick to.
   Period lasted: Still going
   
   
3. Never dress him up: My wife has a wierd fascination with wanting to dress him up in sweaters and stuff. I caved and let her buy him a halloween costume last month. The XS is still TOO BIG for him.
   Period Lasted: 4 months.
   

A girl in our building saw Fergus running outside at 11pm while she was smoking and mentioned that she wished she had his energy.

I told her: No you don't. You would never sleep again and you'd hump anything that that you could get your hands on.