As is common when starting a new job, my life has been hectic of late. Not only do I wake up too early, spend way too much time in my car or at work and have to do homework, but I also have responsibilities at home.

A confession, some days I wish I didn’t have to rush home to take care of my pets and spouse. Sometimes I wish I could go out and meet more people. Go to Tweetups, hang out in cafes.  Sometimes I wish I could go out on a date with my spouse after work.

But Cooper needs to be let out. He needs to be played with. He needs to be loved. And sometimes I feel a little annoyed by that.

But then I get home and I spend time with that fluffy pup and I forget that I was annoyed about rushing home during the drive.

His joy at seeing me come home makes me happy to be home. His dog brain is so easy to make happy. A quick run, a quick snuggle, some yummy snacks, I’d rather make him happy than awkwardly hang out trying to meet new people.

I meet people better when he’s around anyways. Poodles are people magnets. As much as people want to pretend they are not snooty enough to like poodles Cooper always puts a smile on their face.

But then I always feel a different type of guilt. The guilt of not spending enough time with him.

Poodles were originally bred as a retriever. The Germans developed the breed and named them after Pudel, which means to splash in water. Well that might not have been a good trait for a water retriever. One must swim in order to get to bird the hunter just shot, not just splash around in the shallows.

So the Germans lost interest in the breed and were going to let them die out. Until one day some Frenchmen were in the area and saw the potential in the breed.

What a great breed to use in our beauty salons to teach hair dressers how to do hair they said!

In reality the French recognized the breed for it’s incredible intelligence and funny looks leading to careers as circus attractions and marvelous family companions.

Whatever the actual history is, I’m glad they kept the breed going. They are truly wonderful.

You know that proverb “cleanliness is next to godliness”, I think Cooper doesn’t want to imply that he’s even slightly like the man upstairs.

Recently I started been reading a blog called 1000 Reasons I’m a Crap Mom. It is adorable. Being constantly bombarded by parenting tips she is constantly reminded of her failings as a mother.

I don’t have children. I have pets. And even as a pet owner I have my failings. So its probably best that we are putting off having children. So imitating my inspiration I bring you 10 Reasons I’m a Bad Pet Mom.

1. I let my pets self feed. Yes I have a fat cat. But I don’t feel a need to put him on a diet. First my other cat is a skinny little thing, second what is the point of making my poor ex-stray fear he will starve. My dog is self fed and he is skinny as anything. So 2 out of 3 pets are skinny enough, that is a 66% success rate right?
2. My animals have to ask to be fed. It doesn’t matter if I filled up his dish ten times the night before, HappyCat always greets me with yowls as I come down the stairs in the morning. This usually means his dish is empty. This is also the real reason my pets are self fed, I cant really be bothered to feed them regularly enough.



3. My dog feels a need to steal from the trash.  We keep trying to break him of it, but he does it anyways.
4. My animals feel a need to drink out of the toilet. We keep trying to stop them but its so funny to see a cat trying to drink out of the toilet without falling in. I’m not sure what is wrong with their water dish, it is usually full when we catch them drinking from the magic fountain.



5. My dog plays with non-dog toys. His favorite toys tend to be soccer balls too big for his mouth and plastic water bottles he finds on the side of the road.
6. I don’t give my pets routine. Apparently animals thrive on routine. We purposefully tried to keep Cooper off a routine when he was a pup. I didn’t want him to get upset if we came home late, or didn’t take him to a park on Sundays.
7. My pets live a double standard. Cats are allows on furniture, dog is not.
8. I don‘t let them do what they want. Audrey wants to go outside, so shes not allowed. HappyCat wants to stay in the house, so I try to take him out. Cooper wants to be with me at all times, so he’s left alone in the house.



9. I’m terrible with a brush and nail clippers. But they don’t seem to enjoy it anyways so why torment them (mats and sharp claws that is why).
10. I love leaving my pets with strangers. Go on Vacation, get someone else to take care of your animals. Preferably with very lax instructions like, feed them this whenever you feel like it and if they get sick here is their vets number.

Why are you a good or bad pet owner?

On Saturday Cooper and I hiked to the Summit of the highest Mountain of New Hampshire. We came down the Tuckerman Trail, which was so crowded I was thinking that people could link up arms as they climbed up the trail.

• “Did he actually summit?”
• “Do you think that was a full poodle or a mix”
• “Shouldn’t he be in pom poms somewhere?”
• “He’s small for a big poodle”
• “Ohhhhh Cute!!!”
• *Discrete* attempts at taking pictures of dog.
• “Are poodles part mountain goat?”
• “Can I cuddle with your dog?”
• “World energy crisis solution: harness your dog”
• “That is the coolest poodle EVER”
• “Can I borrow a couple of your dog’s legs”
• “If a poodle can make it to the top, so can I”

And the best compliment I can be given:

• “What an exceptionally well trained dog”

A couple questions made me want to give a snarky response:

• “Does he like hiking?”
• “How can you be sure he’s not tired/hungry/injured?”

First of all, we probably do 90%+ of our hiking off leash (thus tons of well trained dog comments). This allows Cooper to set his own pace. He’s been hiking since he was 9 weeks old and has gradually increased in distance and difficulty.

As an intelligent dog he will often run ahead and lie down and wait for me to catch up.

As for feeding and watering him. I regularly take breaks to offer him food and drink. Often he just wants to get back on the trail and looks annoyed that I’ve stopped for any reason at all.

Injury wise, I also pay close attention to his gait/pace. I am prepared to carry all 36 pounds of him down the mountain if I have to. I have in the past. When we hiked Mt Tom this winter he developped ice feet. It was painful enough for him that he sat down on the trail and wouldn’t walk. I carried him down for a mile wrapped in sweaters until his feet thawed out.

And finally, clearly he loves it. Watch him as he bounces around from rock to rock. There’s a reason lots of people compared him to a mountain goat.

So to those who said nice things, thank you. To those who doubted that I had my dog’s best interest at heart, I hope you are now a believer.

Dear dog,

I know you have spent your life from 8 weeks of age on with a high quality, fancy lens, high speed shutter camera in your face.

How about an example:

So when I’m trying to take a picture of you with a low pixel, built in lens, takes forever, cell phone camera can you please keep still long enough for the picture?

Maybe we will have to try sedatives or something… Can dogs have ADD? How about ADHD?

OK, Thanks!

I think Cooper misses his winter hiking booties. I mean, why else would he avoid perfectly good rocks to walk right through the swamp. I guess the booties are stylish and all.

And that he’s a pretty noticeable fellow with them on. But wouldn’t it be preferable for him to not have stinky muck on his feet.

I guess he’s a dog after all.

Cooper has always been incredibly easy on toys. He still has a stuffed teddy bear that my friend Dawn picked out for him the day I picked him up. That was over a year ago. He plays with it regularly and it still looks great.

He prefers to shred things he finds in the trash. (He is only 16 months old, he can’t be too perfect or we will figure out that he’s actually an alien).

But generally we assume that the things we give Cooper will last a long time. So imagine my surprise when I noticed something amiss before I had even put in my contact lenses in the morning.

My perfect poodle was completely naked. He wasn’t even wearing his permanent accessory, a slip on Martingale type collar (think a fabric prong collar without any prongs). I have evidence that he was wearing it the night before.

A few feet away, at the top of the stairs where Cooper usually brings his overnight conquest of the trashcan, was his collar in two pieces.

I have no idea how it broke or if my poor pup was in a panic that caused him to have to break it. All I know is that I’ll have to replace it. Because right now he’s wearing a collar I only intended for him to wear when I bring him to cheer on Northeastern by the side of the river. And that collar was too expensive to end up on the ground.

It was hot for New Hampshire during most of the month of May. Because Cooper was clearly being affected by the heat we had him sheared down from his normal teddy bear appearance.

(Notice, he’s being bad. He’s sitting on the top of the back of the couch to look out that window in that way).

We had him shaved down to almost nothing on Monday

He always looks so strange to me when he’s shaved down. He’s all lean, skinny, awkward legs.

He doesn’t look like a fluffy teddy bear to me anymore, instead he reminds me of some weird guy streaking across a sports stadium’s field. His gait even seems to change when he’s naked. He almost looks like some kind of fluffy headed Gazelle.

But the vet’s office was very impressed with him when I brought him there. He weighed in at 36 pounds which is tiny for a standard poodle. A vet tech and I started talking about how huge Standard Poodles have gotten and how many poodle owners seem impressed with Cooper’s size. She told me that a lot of their huge standard poodle patients are not as well behaved at Cooper, they seem more hyper. Clearly she hasn’t met my poodle when he’s out running on the trails.

So we shaved him down, brought him to the vet and got him ready for summer. And what happens? It gets cold. Rainy, wet cold. The kind of cold that only happens when you just shaved down your dog, planted cold sensitive plants in your backyard, and need to mow your lawn.

I pulled out one of Cooper’s hiking coats.

It’s a Ruffwear Cloud Chaser softshell jacket, I wish I had one as pretty for myself. (I bought it last winter at a serious discount)

It does pretty much fit him perfectly when he’s shaved down to nothing. And I’m not going to pay to get him a bigger one for when he’s fluffy.

Of course Cooper being Cooper, we need to demonstrate that he can still run in the jacket.

Now the real question is, how do I make it warmer again? Do I give my dog hair extensions?

I have spent considerable amount of time and money training my poodle. We have completed 4 courses now, Basic I, Basic II, Canine Good Citizen, and Rally-O novice level. We continue to train because I would like to do some competitive obedience with him, but also because we want to keep him safe no matter what conditions we encounter in the real world.

Our instructors try to prepare us for the real world but there’s always that nervous moment when you first encounter that strange child climbing on your dog, or the out of control horse barreling down the trail.

So sometimes we try to stage the real life experiences.

When Cooper was a puppy a lady riding her bike on the trail was braking so she could pet him. She was exclaiming “Puppy”. Cooper ran right in front of her bike and was bumped enough that he yelped. I was a little worried that he didn’t learn his lesson and would hurt an actual mountain biker flying down the trail some day.

So my parents came to visit and wanted to go for a bike ride. I thought: excellent, we will see how he does with people who wont sue me.

And I was pleasantly surprised. My parents on bikes, me running on foot. Cooper sprinted to the lead bicyclist and sprinted back to me a few times. When he was next to a bike he ran along side a couple meters away. He kept an eye out for where the bikes were in relation to himself.

Our only thing of concern, while my parents were traveling the opposite direction of the loop from me we encountered a little girl on the trail. She fell off her bike when she hit some gravel. Cooper started barking at the bike. Angry scared barking. We got him to settle down and the little girl and accompanying guardian didn’t seem alarmed. It was suggested that Cooper was just upset at the bike for trying to hurt the little girl.

So overall, pretty pleased with my poodle. I think I’ll keep him.