NEW FRIENDS, NEW EXPERIENCES - 08.28.2010 TO 08.30.2010

These past few days have been pretty exciting for Orso and the rest of us at home. On Saturday, we had some of our dog-loving friends come over to meet Orso. It was a great opportunity for him to socialize with adults AND children who he had never met before. Since he got shots on Friday, we were cool with allowing people who have pets to come over and interact with him. It was great to see that he was not shy at all and loved all the new faces (and fingers, and shoes, and toes, and towels, etc). He, Mouse and Luna spent most of the BBQ with us, but also were given some time out throughout the day to recharge. It's a lot to handle when there are lots of new people around, more for Orso than the other two, so we didn't want him to get stressed out with the commotion. We took a ton of photos and would like to share the ones that have dogs in them!

A great highlight of Saturday was that most of us were in the pool and Orso was VERY curious about this giant water bowl in the middle of the patio. When I was in the pool, I took advantage to gently introduce him to it by carrying him while I was in the shallow end of the pool. He barely struggled the first time and the other two times I did it, he cared less. Each time when I set him down on the first step of the pool, he was totally chill with the whole thing and actually seemed very amused by the whole experience. He kept trying to lap up the water, which I don't like because of the pool chemicals, but there was not too much I could do about it. I also was extremely careful to not get his head or ears wet. Below is a great video of the day from start to end. It is a LONG compilation video - almost 6 minutes - and the background music runs out before the video by a couple minutes, but it's well worth the watch.

On another note, Orso's ears are doing great! Gus and I removed the tape Sunday night to check on the ears. They are BOTH standing!!!! YAY! However, we felt that it would be sensible to tape them lightly just to make sure they continue to both stand nicely. He is also still on his antibiotics for the infection. So we, with the help of YouTube, struggled like amateur nurses to tape Orso's ears. Poor guy. He was not impressed with our clumsy taping skills, but took it like a champ.

Orso is also spending a lot of time trying to play with Luna and Mouse. Not so much with Mouse since he is the more timid one and keeps to himself. Luna is very curious with him and seems to like the attention she gets from him. Orso, being a puppy, is absolutely relentless in his pursuit of Luna. He bites her tail and goes skiing behind her, which she has impressively tolerated. She has given him a few gentle corrections here and there, but is being a great "mom" to him. I think both Mouse and Luna are worried about playing with him since we are always watching like hawks; afterall, we are responsible for establishing his place in the pack, so they know that one bad move and we'll jump. Overall, though, everyone is very relaxed around each other and seem to be getting along great, which is a wonderful thing only 2 weeks after bringing Orso to his new home.