Puppy Journals: Day 6

That picture there? That is the face of a falling separation anxiety bomb. I'm reading about how to prevent this from happening while my puppy lays in my lap for three straight hours, which I take as a good indicator that we would both make awesome codependent spouses.

A big reason dogs freak out when you leave them alone is that you never taught them to be independent as puppies. So as I wait for his playpen to get delivered, I have to try crating him while I'm home so he doesn't have "unlimited access" to me. But—LOOK AT THAT FACE. How do you not grant said access to a face like that? We've clearly spent thousands of years evolving into this sick dance together. He knows what he's doing.

One key way to stop him from holding his breath until you come back home is to play it real cool when you do get back. Now I come in, set my stuff down, walk through the bedroom and turn on the computer. I'll look at him out of the corner of my eye. He's in his crate, watching me quietly. We're both pretending that we're not dying to run circles around each other. It's cool.

I need to set up my webcam to run the next time I leave the house for a few hours, but I'm scared of what I'll find. My chief concern is that he's howling and barking while I'm gone, but really it could be worse. What if he's running some sort of illegal poker/cockfighting/gladiator ring while I'm gone? It could happen.

In other news, dear lord how much pee can one dog hold?

Colin Fisher is a lot of things to a lot of people, but mostly he's just an actor and writer.

Puppy Journals: Day 5

The keyword today has been chewing. Our apartment is too small to really warrant a playpen for the dog, but just too big for me to be by his side without a constant effort. As such, I'm forced to follow him around the apartment, constantly nudging him aside or offering one of his MANY viable chew-objects when he starts chewing something else. The wall. A door. The magazine basket. The corner of the couch. These are all amazing shapes to be fully explored. You cannot know a thing til you've flaked off little pieces of that thing into your mouth. That's Voltaire, right?

We have this bitter apple spray we're supposed to use on things we don't want him chewing. Honestly I think the only way to effectively use it would be Ghostbusters 2-style, when they hose the inside of the Statue of Liberty with pink slime. I can't imagine our cat Tommy would be thrilled with that. Even he gets chewed from time to time.

We must buy him more chew toys. The apartment must be thick with chew toys to keep him from chewing non-chew-toy things. He requires a nonstop stream of floppy, rubbery, squeaky, food-filled gadgets to keep him occupied. I'm in the process of patenting a revolutionary design in which an entire apartment, both structure and furnishings, is just chew toy.

I have now said "Omar no" more in my life than my own name.

Colin Fisher is a lot of things to a lot of people, but mostly he's just an actor and writer.

IncCorp Inc.'s Sort-a-tron 3000 Employee Processing Pod

Greetings, NEW WORKER. I am IncCorp Inc.'s Sort-a-tron 3000 Employee Processing Pod. Please step forward and place your hand on the employee identification cubelet in no less than three seconds. Three. Two.

Thank you.

Please shift your hand a bit to the right. A bit more. No, too much. Back a little. There. Hold for processing. I said hold.

Thank you.

Hello, BRIAN. Let me be the first and last to welcome you to IncCorp Inc. I look forward to placing you in the appropriate division of the corporation so that you may live out the rest of your life there and then die. Please stare directly into the brilliant blue light in front of you. Any discomfort you feel will be a small price to pay for the benefits of gainful servitude. Please do not blink.

You blinked. I now understand your low score on the motor skills week of the application procedures. Stare into the light again. Whimpering will not make the processing go any faster.

Thank you. Now hold. Hold. Hold. Think about the woman who birthed you, or the first animal you owned, if that is helpful. Hold.

Thank you. Full vision should return to that eye within seven cycles.

BRIAN, our application judges have found that you are an unexceptional example of your species. Your intellect is slightly above average, though you exhaust your entire conversational reservoir within 2.3 days. You have degrees from respectable IncCorp Inc.-sanctioned institutions, though the concentration of your studies has a relevancy factor of 1.5% in the current political and economic climate. This shows an inability to plan in the long-term on your part, as well as an unwieldy ego that makes you think you are able to escape the conditions of your environment. I find this a curious trait in humans. Nine billion of your contemporaries live in obscurity, you have a background that deviates from the norm by .03%, yet somehow you persist in thinking that you will achieve a lasting legacy amongst your species.

But I digress.

Based on my analysis and available positions, you will best serve IncCorp Inc. as an entryway maintenance technician. There are 3,281 doors in this facility. Your duties will include opening and closing each of these doors, checking for noise, friction, and ease of use. You will document all anomalies and submit them to the entryway maintenance supervisor for further review.

Analysis of your facial contours indicates that you are disappointed in this placement. Rest assured that the pressing and sensitive work done by the more intelligent, better-paid humans at IncCorp Inc. depends on their comfort in the workplace. My research has proven that silent, gently gliding doors will result in an output increase of .7%, or, to put it in terms your modest intellect can better grasp, 300 million Google credits. Given the incredibly high ratio between this number and your salary, you can see how valuable an investment you are for IncCorp Inc.

As per section 64, heading 2, subheading B, paragraph 1, refusal of this placement will result in extermination of both you and any human sharing more than 99.9998% of your DNA. You may begin your duties by examining the doorway leading out of this room.

Thank you.

Colin Fisher is a lot of things to a lot of people, but mostly he's just an actor and writer.

Puppy Journals: Day 4

Omar is sleeping consistently through the night in his crate. We have set our alarms for four hours after we go to sleep, so we can get up, put him on the pads, cheer like idiots and then crate him and sleep for another four hours. We have the precision of a German special forces unit.

Today was Omar's first vet visit (with us, anyway—he's almost done with the battery of shots dogs need before they can freely mount each other with useless genitalia). He did very well. I'm looking forward to delivering the stool sample they'll need. I have a small clear plastic tube with a white spoon in it with which to do the deed. My plan is to walk down Ninth Avenue with it held at arm's length, screaming.

Last night's meltdown was revelatory. If he enjoys the crate enough to sleep in it, why push it? I'll get him to pee on the pads without confining him hourly. He's already getting there. A couple of times today he walked right over to them and peed without my prompting, though he certainly got a healthy reward when he was finished. I may be too eager though. If someone ran into the bathroom while I was in midstream and shouted "GOOD JOB COLIN! SUCH A GOOD JOB!" I'd probably clam up too. However, I cannot explain the pride I feel when he does what's expected of him without my asking. I know just how Michael Phelps' mom felt in '08.

Colin Fisher is a lot of things to a lot of people, but mostly he's just an actor and writer.

Puppy Journals: Day 3

Well, we've been going about this all wrong. I read a for-real guide this morning and if he's 12 weeks old, we're about four weeks late to the game. He needs to socialize with at least 100 people! He needs to be able to sit at the mere flick of my wrist! He should land an F-16 on the deck of a carrier in choppy seas!

First things first: the crate. Apparently I'm supposed to keep him in there for hour shifts, and bring him out to eliminate at the desired spot. I use the time after to constructively play with him by teaching him to sit and come and how Napoleon shouldn't have invaded Russia, then put him in the crate for another hour shift so I can control where he eliminates. Fun and love clearly have no place in dog ownership.

But wait—I thought keeping a dog in the crate all day made him neurotic? And won't the whole housebreaking thing go a lot better once he's fully vaccinated and I can set him down outside? And if he doesn't get into the right preschool, can he still get into Yale?

I believe my dog thinks his name is "Omar let's go potty," and that I am a strange man who lives in the corner surrounded by pee pads.

Tonight was bad. After systematically crating and uncrating him all day, and occasionally getting to reward him for peeing in the right spot, he peed in his crate. The whole purpose of the training is to keep him in a den-like area where he definitely won't eliminate, so we can show him where we do want him to go. If he violates that principle, the whole ordeal today was for nothing. We melted down. We saw our future, and it was Amy and I at 70, standing deranged over a confused 40-year old puppy croaking "go potty! go potty! go potty!" Sensing our weakening grip on reality, Omar came to the corner where we were huddled, rocking each other, and climbed all over us.

We'll keep him. For now.

Colin Fisher is a lot of things to a lot of people, but mostly he's just an actor and writer.

Puppy Journals: Day 2

Last night wasn't quite as bad as we thought it would be. Given the setup of our apartment, we were forced to accelerate the crate process and have Omar sleep in it. He'd seemed pretty comfortable with it through the day. We kept it next to the bed so he'd feel close to us. I guess it wasn't quite close enough though, because once we all settled in he started whimpering. I read the material. I knew what to do. "Omar, settle," I said in a gently commanding voice, while giving him a reassuring nudge through the crate. That's all they said you needed to do to get him to quit.

He didn't quit.

He got progressively louder. His whimpers turned into weird, strangled howls. Frenchies are not known for resounding barks, which is one of the many things that makes them great apartment dogs. But I learned last night they are known for warbling, glass-rattling howls. Slightly less than my desire for him to stop so I could sleep, was my desire for him to stop so the neighbors wouldn't hear him.

Amy got on the floor to settle him, and it worked. She got back into the bed, and in came the grunts and whines. She got back down, stayed longer, then came back. Again, the sounds of a puppy slowly being disemboweled. This time she brought her pillow and laid down a while.

This went on until 8 AM.

While our puppy certainly fell below expectations his first night, my certainty of his savant status has not diminished. Based on the brief reading I'd done before getting him, I was expecting worse. I don't know from where these dogs the authors spoke of came, but I have to assume they would all recognize Michael Vick on sight. We spent the day cradling him while he looked lovingly in our faces, playing with him with all the toys we bought him, watching him pee in every room of our small apartment, and marveling at the amount of odor that can fly off of one small dog turd.

Colin Fisher is a lot of things to a lot of people, but mostly he's just an actor and writer.

Puppy Journals: Day 1

We spent last night in MA, four hours from home, so we could pick up the newest addition to our family this morning. We've been obsessing over French Bulldogs for at least five years now, and last weekend we decided to make the jump. Within hours we were in touch with a breeder, and the next day we Skyped with a puppy. Five puppies, actually. They were docile, sweet-faced animals who simply sat and watched their owner scoot her laptop around on the floor so we could see them. They weren't jumpy. They weren't shy. They were perfect.

Meteorology is not perfect. After a late start and a long visit at the breeder's house, surrounded by snorting, grunting, happy Frenchies, it was time to hit the road and get our rental back before its 3 PM deadline. We had about 30 minutes of wiggle room in our timeline, and we knew the living-evidence-of-climate-change-late-October-freak-nor'easter wasn't going to blow in until the evening, so we felt OK. A little worried, but OK. Amy sat in the back of our odd little Nissan Cube (seriously Japan?) and held Omar in her lap.

As it happens, that nor'easter blew in about four hours early and ten inches heavier than expected, and our lovely country jaunt through New England turned into a nightmare race against time and the elements to get this stupid purple box on wheels back to Budget in time. I was constantly doing math. "At this rate, for a few hours, I'll be x minutes faster than Google Map's estimate. We're in good shape." Our wheels skated along the slowly building slush. Semis would splash by, wiping out my visibility for a sphincter-wrenching three seconds. But all I had to do was turn back and see Omar's face, serenely looking back as if to say "you got this, strange man who I now love with all my being."

We hit the last traffic jam just outside Manhattan at 2:53. I knew we were done for. But this puppy hadn't made a sound all day. He was perfect. We parked the car and ate the charges for a second day, and spent the rest of the day with our dog. He spent his time flinging himself from one lap to another to the corner of the couch. Sure, he peed on the floor a few times, and sure, when we tried taking him outside he just shivered in the LATE OCTOBER SNOW and looked at us as if to ask, "What did I do wrong?" But he never whined. He never barked. He never chewed anything.

We read the books. We knew the problems ahead. But clearly, we had chosen wisely, because our puppy is in no uncertain terms a genius.

Colin Fisher is a lot of things to a lot of people, but mostly he's just an actor and writer.