Clementine

Timothy loves dogs. The only problem is, Gelo is a little dog who Timothy can easily squish. He tolerates Timothy as long as Timothy doesn't touch his paws, tail, or lays on him. How are we supposed to prevent that?! We have a family nearby who has a son with spina bifida and they have this beautiful white golden retriever. We studied up on the breed and decided that we would get Timothy a golden retriever puppy when he got older. 

Then came quarantine ...and all sense left.  We started puppy shopping. Evelyn was so excited, she wanted to invest her college money into the puppy so that she could breed it and earn more college money. 

We finally found her: Clementine. She was sweet, adorable and calm. 

We decided to name her Clementine, and if we called her a nick-name it would be "Tiney" so we would have a "Tiney" and a "Tim". She was so great! She loved water, and loved Gelo. She loved all of us. She slept well though the night. We thought she was perfect.

But as the days went on, her body grew faster than her brain. She didn't like walks, she would literally drag behind us. She was scared of the neighborhood children who couldn't help but scream and come running when they saw her. (granted I was a little scared of them too!) She wasn't potty-training well because she had been 100% outside puppy before we got her. She wouldn't even give a hint of when she was going to squat. She woke up at 5:30 and wanted to play, needed constant supervision, and became extremely hyper. Gelo became terrified of her when she got bigger than him. Timothy was fascinated with her, but hated her too because she would jump on his back when he got near. He started hitting frantically every time she got close. I was so scared she would get too heavy and actually really hurt him before she learned to be gentle with him. After a couple weeks of telling ourselves: its just the first 6 months! Just get through those 6 months! We decided baby+big puppy= horrid idea. We found the perfect family for her and sold her. 

Someday we will try again with a golden. We still want one, but I am wondering if I will ever be brave enough to try again with a puppy. A pug puppy is a lot of work, but a golden is ridiculous! 

 Timothy played puppy after Clementine left (once he realized he was safe on the floor again). He also, unfortunately picked up biting. He was a naughty, growly puppy. But he was very good at sitting, laying down, rolling over and speaking. He even rocked at fetch! 

 

The other surprising benefit of having Clementine for those couple weeks was that Gelo decided he loved Timothy. Timothy was now his boy. Clementine was NOT welcome near his boy. After she left, Gelo shocked us all by jumping up in Timothy's lap. Now they are great friends. When Timothy gets really rough with Gelo, he'll still growl, but he is infinitely patient now. I am pretty sure Gelo would sleep in Timothy's bed if we let him.