We drove out to Tampa this last Saturday to pick up our new dog, Roger. I have to say I had a hard time believing that there was a dog out there who does not bark, but I have been proven wrong!

He looks so much like our last dog, Lola, that I catch myself almost calling him by that name much of the time. Roger is very sweet tempered; he does not jump up on people, but his tail can whip pretty hard when he is excited; I have not heard one bark come out of him yet; he stays back when I open the front door and does not try to escape, and he is pretty content to just hang out on the floor.

Being a very out of shape dog, we are going to slowly acclimate him to an exercise routine. First I am working on helping him learn to walk on a leash; when he’s good at that we’ll start a walk/jog routine and work up to a full jog. After taking a pretty easy stroll around the block he is out of breath so we will work slowly with him. He also has a difficult time making it up and down the stairs – almost falling down the last few stairs every time down. I pretty much run up and down them so I started going slowly to help pace him and that seems to have helped.

Now every dog has some bad traits so I will discuss them here. He likes to chew on his bone and his stuffed duck which is fine, but the kid’s stuffed animals and toys look tempting. After chewing the leg off of Batman, the kids have been warned to keep their toys put away (this may turn out to be a good thing…). He likes to sit under the grand piano and so I am VERY QUICKLY working on breaking him of this habit – every time he tried to sit near or under the piano I directed him to another spot of floor and praised him.