Big Foot

« On the first night we had Otava, we were walking down the street and saw that someone had drawn a giant paw in the snow on a manhole cover. Perhaps it was a warning to small dog owners that a sasquatch, a.k.a. bigfoot, lives nearby. :) »

You know you've become a neighbourhood legend of sorts when kids you've never seen before come by the dog park on the way home and ask if the adorable furball is named Otava. He's something of a curiosity since there are so few Saints in Finland which is odd when there are so many Bernese [closely related to Saints] and Pulivari, the Saint in Aku Ankka. Some of the older kids, and adults, remember HB and start to ask if I'm the one with the other Saint and realise mid-sentence that they've not seen him for many months. He loves kids and trots up to them almost without exception and licks at their hands. Loud noises, especially the snow trucks and plows, still frighten him but I don't blame him as I'm not very fond of them myself. He has adjusted well enough now that I think it's time to have friends over to meet him finally as everyone wants to see how adorable he is at four months.

His personality is starting to manifest itself already. He's a climber. He cannot get enough of going up and down the hills in the park or diving into the big drifts of snow. The sofa has presented itself as his own personal Mt. Everest which he attempts to conquer each and every evening. Yesterday afternoon, I hid behind the door to the living room, to let him try it just once as he appeared to be looking for something in the cushions whenever he tried to scale Mt. Largesse. Through the crack between the door and the wall, I watched him wriggle his way up to the top, sniff a little, survey his domain and flop down into the cushions while letting out this loud, satisfied sigh. I suppressed the urge to laugh and walked into the room and pulled him off of the sofa. I fully expect that someday, when he's older and has full run of the house, I'll come home to find him on the sofa drinking beer, eating pizza, and surfing for porn on my laptop.

We are also convinced that he was a woodchuck in a former life since his lust for wood and paper of any kind continues; Books, paper towels, tissues, newspapers, trees/saplings and anything else containing trace amounts of wood pulp. He has not as yet figured out that the furniture is loaded with this magical tasty substance. He's housetrained, he knows how to sit, he knows how to come when called, but the cunning doesn't extend to getting the clue that all the furniture is made of wood. Of course, as soon as I utter these words he'll devour the entire dining room table in an afternoon. Well, I've always thought furniture was rather bourgeois anyway.

He is, perhaps, one of the most affectionate and well behaved puppies I've ever known. Aside from the occasional excited barking before meals, his fixation with the sofa and being reluctant to leave the house and/or the park [though he is improving], he's very attentive and happy. I happened to see a beef kidney at the market yesterday when I was out shopping and bought it since it was only a euro. I chopped it up, cooked it with some carrots and rice and gave him a bit of it with his dinner. I don't know that I've seen such a happy and contented puppy give such a look of utter love and devotion before. I think that he has decided to keep us. :)