Package Contained Bobcat

 xkcd by Randall Munroe,  "A Minus-Minus"

I adore xkcd.  Day in and day out Randall Munroe puts out scathing social commentary, amusing visual puns, news of scientific oddities, and just plain weirdness in the guise of stick figure comics.

The man is brilliant.

I often find myself referencing something from his work in my day to day life and when I started to think about today's blogpost, I flashed on this comic.  Strangely enough, I remembered it as 'contained live bobcat' and when I googled it, the correct day came up.  Spooky that the search algorithm knew what I was looking for, even though I was wrong.  Skynet, anyone?

So onto today's thoughts.

We adoped Dustin, a new dog, in August.  On his petfinder's page, he was described as a 2-3 yo male Lhasa Apso.  Well, 1 out of 3 is not bad.  He is male.

But he's no 2-3 yo dog.

Nor is he a Lhasa Apso.  At least not most of him.

No, our Dustin is likely not much older than 1, and has primarily terrier in his genetic makeup.  Likely Jack Russel Terrier, with some long haired dog in the mix to account for his coat.

If you know anything about JRT's or terriers in general, you know they are high energy/high maintenance dogs.  That can jump.  And are smart and stubborn.  Food motivated.  Opinionated.

We started dog obedience classes last week, and let's just say that Dustin is a work in progress.  We had to work in the hallway, away from the other dogs or Dustin would go through this Dr. Jekyl/Mr. Hyde transformation that begins with whimpering and tail wagging and ends with full-on snarling and lunging. Poor guy wants to be social, but just can't figure out how to stay calm enough to do it.

So we're working on clicker training and positive reinforcement.

And the reality of it is, he's a great dog who has the capacity to be a well behaved one.  It's just going to take some time and some work.  So, with apologies to Randall, I likely would adopt Dustin again, even knowing him as I do now.

Better than a bobcat.

:)