It's been about three weeks since Finn joined the illustrious ranks of the Holt household. Three weeks, six puddles of pee, a ruined pillow, some unfortunately placed poops, two mangled retainers, untold stray hairs, a now-frayed stray glove and a boxful of coughed-up Kleenex, to be exact.
To be fair, it's also been three weeks, two million adoring looks, 63 head-burrowing hugs, 40 joyful walks and two well-tolerated baths.
Yeah, he's fitting in nicely.
Having Finn the puppy in the house is like eating Indian food for the second time. We mistook the mellow undertones of Hobbes the adult Hobo Dog (read, chicken tikka) for the whole shebang, and thus have been surprised by the range of other, much more exotic flavors of doghood that are out there (read, vindaloo).
If ever we were threatening to become canine curmudgeons, content to have a dog that required next to nothing, aside from a short walk and some fresh food and water, Finn has changed all that.
Walking Finn has awakened me to my declining faculties. Apparently, there is a whole, Metallica-laced, screeching world out there that utterly escapes me. I simply can't hear the whispery movements of a neighborhood hare or the subtle shifts of the earth's plates the way that Finn can. I now see why his ears are so big. They're like military-grade secret weapons, always at the ready to intercept some subtle danger or adventure that teeters on the edge of our landscape.
About twice a day, Finn absolutely loses his mind, racing around the house like a meth addict in search of the last two Sudafeds. Actually, it's pretty hilarious. And kind of stunning, too. He seems unfazed by our mostly wood-floored abode, one in which stop-on-a-dime redirects are virtually impossible. And he seems pretty darned happy as he races about, some inaccessible storyline fueling his entertaining adventures.
We're pretty darned happy, ourselves, aside--perhaps--from Allison, whose room and things have taken the brunt of Finn's more basic and unfortunate functions. But even Allison is wearing down, no longer able to resist the cold, wet nudge of Finn's nose as he insists on loving her.
And so, the Holts enter a new phase of life--a noisier, more active, hairier, albeit still happy phase--one framed by the love and antics of a dog we just met last month. Such are the lessons in life, so often framed in surprising bursts of love that no one could have anticipated.
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