Puppyfishing

In January, we got a dog. I'd been looking for a Pomeranian, but after having spent all of October interviewing breeders, decided that for right now, we would be better off with a somewhat larger and more resilient dog. (The pomeranian breed standard calls for a range from 3 pounds to 7 pounds, and most of the breeders we spoke with were aiming for the lower end of that scale.)

I hadn't expected to find a dog at the humane society. Most of the dogs that wind up there are little wiry terrier mixes that love to jump and bark, or huge cumbersome short-hair drooling dogs that love to bark.

Being the fiber-aholic that I am, I really had my heart set on a long-fur, double-coat, soft-to-pet, happy dog that loves loathes to be brushed.

Zhenya doesn't love to be brushed. He loves to shed. Everywhere. All the time. My dog sheds, my carpet gets brushed. One way or another, I get the fur. When we first got him, he was blowing his undercoat, and I could pull the soft downy fur off of him by the handful. Now that it's summer, he doesn't have much undercoat, but that doesn't stop him from shedding!

His very favorite game is one we call "puppyfishing." Gipsieee knitted up and felted a fish-shaped toy from green Lamb's Pride wool. We tie it to a long lunge-whip and whirl it around, up, down, flipping about madly, while Z chases it with reckless abandon until he drops, out of breath.