I recently acquired a sweet little white puppy, toy poodle type, and brought him home and named him Chutney. (It’s a long story, dealing with a previous poodle named Pickles).  Since then my exercise regime has really stepped up. I’ve been doing my regular EA Active 2 stuff but life is so much more exciting now, as my regular routine is combined with:

1. Leaping out of bed from a deep sleep to put the puppy on his pee pad at 4 AM.

2. Leaping out a second time after letting him out of his kennel for a morning cuddle when I realize he has slipped off somewhere and is being very quiet which means he is either eating something toxic or precious or has pooped and is eating that.

3. Leaping out a third time when I realize I hadn’t found the poo and only realize he’s eaten it by the smell of his breath as he climbs up for a morning kiss.

Dogs are truly disgusting.  I know he thinks he is only tidying up  after himself, and he never does this except if he has pooed inside, but…ewwww.

Then there’s the regular jogs around the neighborhood.  A toy poodle comes complete with coiled steel springs in his legs, a whirligig tail, a surprising amount of intelligence, and energy to power most of New York State.  If I don’t walk him for at least an hour a day I am spending the day chasing him around my house, trying to control the puppy-attention-seeking destruction. Over Christmas, my son’s girlfriend was visiting and crocheting.  I was working on an embroidery project.  Chutney felt left out, so he searched my apartment until he found a bag, closed over, with yarn inside it, and teased the yarn out and brought it to us so he could be crafty, too. I worked off lots of sweets dashing about after that.

I do stretches and bends as I retrieve bits of paper and small things from the floor – if I drop a receipt and don’t grab it immediately, it is expertly shredded and scattered all over. I can’t read magazines anymore – those little insert subscription cards slip out and result in snow-covered living areas.  I was going to buy a shredder machine for my financial info but instead I just shut Chutney up in my den and let him at it.  Then there’s the endless bending and stretching as I pick up the bigger bits before vacuuming.

I do reaches as I place things I don’t want investigated on higher and higher shelves, and cross my fingers Chutney stops growing soon as I’m not very tall and the combo of his growth and the coiled steel springs and my lack of reach means few areas are safe anymore.

It’s all good, the exercising, but every once and awhile I cherish the thought of being able to accomplish something that doesn’t involve puppy endangerment.  Like reading a book, which I now do one-handed while holding a chew stick for the dog to work on. So all of my books smell oddly of barbecue.

It’s like having a toddler again.  Even the walks are the same – I used to take my kids out in the stroller and we’d come back with me tired and them all energized from a nap.  Chutney does the walking, too, but it doesn’t really seem to wear him out as much as I’d hoped. Like people and exercise, more exercise means more energy.  I’m just a few weeks behind him.