Dog Blog--Sampson, 6 months old
Catching up... It has been too long since I've taken the time to write about Sampson or revisit the dog blog. It's been two months of dashing to the finish line on my latest novel and adjusting to getting everyone back on a school schedule, not to mention integrating a growing dog/older puppy into the mix. Luckily, though Sampson whimpers when we walk Piper to preschool and she disappears behind the glass doors, it is a nice start to our morning, after which he snoozes at my feet during writing time.
Beauty and the Beast
I don't know exactly how big he is--the last time we got him on a scale he was 98 pounds, and that was more than a month ago. I chuckle a little imagining how our home-visit vet will handle this at his check-up next summer. As of now, he brings a bathroom scale, weighs himself, picks up the dog and finds the difference with a calculator. He assures me we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
In looks, he is coming out of the awkward stage--his dog coat is coming in beautiful, glossy and wavy, with the only vestiges of his puppy fur being bronze-ish fluff just under his ears and chin, and on the lower half of his legs, "his pantaloons". From the back, these look sort of like 18th century gentlemens' riding breeches. With the winging hair around his face and his jaunty walk, he reminds me of Mr. Darcy.
Fall
Sampson's first snow came early this year, an unseasonal October storm that canceled soccer games and sent me to the basement to dig out last year's snow pants and mittens weeks ahead of schedule. Newfies love the snow--this is their weather and we've been wondering what he would think of it. In typical Newf style, Sampson went out and used his lower jaw as a snow-shovel, scooped some up, tossed it into the air, and was bewildered when it came down on his head.
Sampson's First Snow, Oct 29He also stole Pip's scarf and made her chase him to get it back. I wish I could capture their relationship here, which is so precious and gets more hilarious the bigger he gets. He adores her, and she babies him ridiculously. He is still the first thing she wants to see when she gets up in the morning, (often easy to oblige if they both end up in the same bed). Overheard from the pillow adjacent to mine this morning:
Oof, Samps, you can lie next to me, but not on me!
With him well over a hundred pounds and Pip not even forty.
Piper reads to him from Bruce Degen's "Gentle Giants"
The mouthing phase is coming to a slow end, though he will still occasionally take her hand into his mouth and hold it there very, very gently.
In its place, his final phase of teething is taking a serious toll on her collection of Barbies. We now have multiple armless, legless, pock-marked naked fashion dolls and there is a semi-stuffed buffalo who looks he is in need of colostomy, a one-eyed howling monkey and fingerless cheerleader doll named Maribelle that everyone agrees belong to Sampson and get traded out for anything valuable he tries to cut his teeth on.
MUSICAL BEDS
I have written before about the bedtime wanderings at the Hoffstead, how rare it is to wake up in the same bed, with the same person (or people) one may have started the night with. As I type this, Piper and Max are in the master bed with me, Sampson snoring away at the foot. Hayden is asleep on Sampson's jumbo bed by the fireplace and last I checked, J was sleeping alone in Piper's room.
Adding Sampson into our musical bed routine has only increased the rotation factor, and much like a certain group of sorority girls in college, you will see from the photos below that he'll sleep with pretty much anyone.
with the kids in "Dads bed"
Piper's bed
As Hayden's pillow
tub timeWhen he has had enough of pillows and covers and kid-snuggles and needs some cool, you'll find Sampson off by himself, snoozing in the bathtub.
Stay tuned for more visits on the dog blog from guests like Emily Weathers Kennedy and another one of Sampson's littermates!