He’s sleeping now. Sleeping is good. Sleeping means not bothering Dino and not poohing or peeing. I already want sleep and feel as if he has been here for months.

We collected him from the kennels. They gave us some food and the little soft toy that they had used, a different one with each puppy. She said that, now that they’ve seen how well Dino is, they have no concern that we will treat him right.

He seemed quieter than I remember. But, I thought, quieter is good.

He went in the back of the car and we drove the half an hour or so to the showroom. F wanted to show him off.

During the journey, he tried to get from the back to the front. He was also sick four times. I asked F to remind me that we should not feed him before travelling. I remembered how it was with Dino.

When we got to the showroom he was shell-shocked. He didn’t want to leave the car and then didn’t want to leave the safety of ‘under the table’. After a while he was coaxed inside and started to be a bit more curious.

I took him home. I let him walk from the lift. In this strange new world he wasn’t going to let me leave him behind anyway.

I opened the door and greeted Dino but Dino could smell him and wondered what he was. On seeing Dino, however, Piero became very excited. This was a dog, after all, and dogs he knew well. Dino, however, was less than impressed. Especially by the fact that Piero thought hair pulling was good fun!

Since then there has been an uneasy truce. Well, uneasy as far as Dino is concerned.

Apart from the one time that Piero tried to eat out of Dino’s bowl as Dino was eating. Then, Piero had a quick, sharp reminder that he has manners to learn.

We have had a lot of success with the newspaper. So far, (and I am keeping my fingers crossed here), all pees have been on newspaper. Unfortunately, the one pooh he did was in the middle of the bedroom floor! oh well, you can’t be perfect at everything when you’re only 2 and a half months old, I guess. However, I was reminded that the whole house seems to smell of dog pooh – and I hope I don’t too!

So, so far, so good. They will get used to each other over the next few months and then it will be fine.