Rewrite completed and sent off to Leading Edge. Hurray! Now, again, comes the waiting. I hate waiting. I thought I was a patient person, but ever since I really started marketing my writing, I think my rock of patience has been worn to a little granite pebble. Sigh. But still, a sense of achievement. Yay!


Hobkin has figured out the stairs. Already. He’s never seen stairs before. They didn’t have any at the breeder’s, so we thought we’d have more time. But we knew we were underestimating him on Sunday evening when Matthew discovered him on the first step. Hobkin was startled and tumbled off and went bounding off to get into some other mischief, but he’d made the discovery. Sure ’nuff, Monday night Matthew found him on the landing, halfway up. Heh. I can’t believe how quickly he learned how to navigate stairs! I mean heck, each step is bigger than he is! Snarf. I don’t think he can work going down yet, though. Animals usually have greater problems with down than up. Now we’ve got a baby gate blocking them off, but it’s obvious we need to clean up the upstairs and get it ready for him. We’re also worried ’cause our stair railings have gaps large enough for him to slip between. We don’t want him to squeeze through and plummet down two stories. Another trip to Home Depot seems to be in order.

He’s such a smart baby! He learned to come to his name last night. Matthew and I sat on opposite sides of the living room with chopped up bits of sugar snap peas and took turns calling him. And he came! 100% success rate in our first training session. Hobkin knows his name already!

We’re also working on “no bite.” He’s teething and very orally fixated right now–like all babies–sticking everything into his mouth. When he closes his teeth on us, which he’s begun to do in play, it never hurts; he is, after all only a baby. But when he’s full grown, he’ll have razor-sharp teeth and jaws strong enough to take off a finger. So we’re trying to teach him that any teeth playing on human skin is bad. Unfortunately, “no bite” is not coming across as well as “come here”.

And, on the orally fixated front, he really is putting everything into his mouth he can get a hold of. We’re very careful to scrub all his veggies to clean off any pesticide residue and I always wash my hands before feeding him. We’re trying to be careful about germs and toxins ’cause there are warnings on the various pet boards about how fragile these critters are. And guess what we caught him doing the other day? He was down at the refridgerator, his little paws reaching as far under it as they could fit, scooping out dust bunnies, lint, and unidentifiable crud. And yep, you guessed it, he then proceeding to pop said unidentifiable crud into his mouth. Silly refridgerator-crud-eating animal.

He woke me up this morning at 5:45. He doesn’t have “gimme fifteen more minutes” down yet either. Sigh. I picked him up and put him into his little enclosure in the kitchen and he made little “rrh rrh” sounds at me until I set out his plate of veggies for breakfast.

But I really do love seeing Hobkin eat, although it usually pretty messy. He seems to think that standing in and sitting on one’s food is required for full culinary appreciation. He likes holding his food in his front paws and then sitting on his hindquarters. Actually, he doesn’t really sit so much as sprawl with his hind legs flopped out on either side of his body. It’s really cute.

He’s definitely gotten more active and adventurous in the week that we’ve had him. He’s going to be a little hellion when he hits adolescence. Awww!

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