Busy Little Boy

The windowsills at our house are all very low, only eighteen inches off the floor plus there are three doors with glass panels that are even lower to the floor. A fourth door is solid and it goes to the garage and to a service door that leads to the deck and dog yard. Mom always uses that solid door to take Levi outside.

These past two weeks of house breaking nirvana Levi figured out the best way to tell Mom he has to go outside is to scratch on one of the three glass paneled doors. From her computer wardrobe in the kitchen she can see two of those doors and hear him at the third so it wasn't such a bad plan for my baby brother to devise for himself. Between Mom keeping him on a schedule that fits with Mom and Dad's life style and Levi finally figuring out how to talk to Mom about his bodily urges I'm giving them both A+'s and declaring they can move to the next hurdle in growing Levi into a great furry kid.

Next on the puppy breaking list is biting or grabbing at anything that remotely moves. Bathrobes that flow behind Mom as she walks, Dad's pants as he tries to put them on---you name it, if it's an article of clothing Levi wants it in his mouth. Our dad is right side paralyzed but getting him self dressed is something he learned to accomplish a long time ago. Even so, it's a long process and thus enters Levi to make it even longer. Levi pulls on socks and pant legs as Dad tries one-handed to thread them in place. Mom hears Dad laughing from the bedroom and when he gets to the part where he says one of the few words in his vocabulary---"shit"---Mom goes in to rescue Dad and give Levi a puppy approved toy to chew.

When I was on earth, I had a thing for socks, too. I stole Mom's whenever I could and would take them all through the house. After Dad's stroke I never, ever took dad's socks again even though he always leaves them on the floor. Levi hasn't learned to respect Dad's uniqueness and limitations yet. His dad comes with wheels---doesn't everyone's, he thinks. So along with the regular puppy training stuff, Levi has extra stuff to learn but he's up for challenge. He's a smart little bugger, even if he did cause Mom to 'redecorate' the place now that he's learned how to snatch things off the table tops. Out of the deck he even manages to get himself in trouble. He tries to help with dead heading the flowers only he hasn't got the part about 'dead' right yet and picks the pretty ones instead. But what's really going to get Mom shaking her head is when she figures out that Levi took a snail ceramic off one of the windowsills and "buried" it in the guest bathroom. He's a busy little boy. ©