The growling has stopped. More or less.

Now, when Piero jumps up at Dino, Dino just tries to move away.

But I’m half convinced that, out of shot, so to speak, Dino tries playing with him, even if he’s a bit small at the moment.

Of course, the playing with him has one, quite serious, drawback.

Piero has learned to bark. He barks when he’s excited and when he wants to play. I only hope (very much hope) that he doesn’t get too excited and wants to play too often during the day, when I’m not there.

Still, I’m sure we’ll find out. If necessary, of course, I shall have to do what I did with Dino and Rufus – i.e. separate them when we’re out. But I’d prefer not to.

The place now looks like a bomb has hit it most of the time. There are toys everywhere, there’s bits of the box that has newspapers in it over the floor and, in a slightly worrying development, there seems to be a new game of moving the newspaper that’s on the floor, collecting pee and pooh.

Apart from the getting up at 5.30 a.m., there’s also the need to watch them whilst they eat as Dino wants Piero’s food and vice versa.

However, when Piero has finished his food, he goes to the dog basket and waits.

As usual, Dino, once full enough starts to do the picnic thing, taking a mouthful of food out of the bowl and dropping it on the rug in the dog basket and then eating them one by one. But Piero is there now to snatch what he can. It is very amusing to watch.

This morning, as I came out of the bathroom, Dino was sat with his back to the unit housing the DVDs. The bottom shelf I had cleared, not wishing to leave too much stuff that was chewable and in easy reach of a puppy. Piero has found that he can sit upright on this bottom shelf – making him slightly taller than Dino and right behind him. I wish I had had my camera.

However, this constant need to watch Piero; clean up after him; stop him from barking, etc. coupled with the need to get up so early is leaving me exhausted (as I indicated in the title of this post – exhausted = eggsorstead :-D). I know it won’t be for ever but, still, I wish it were over already.

p.s. F has actually been getting up with me all the time apart from the one day – and then this morning as he is in Venice. I am impressed.