We adopted Raz in the Spring of 2009. He was born the end of December 2008. He was (and is) a cute fella and even more so as a puppy, but he's also a bit of a handful. His main problems at first were chewing everything and eating things that, well, shouldn't be eaten (like dog poop). He's a very in-your-face kind of dog and I should have picked up one this when I first visited him and he was playing tug-a-war with much bigger dogs and not giving up. Our only consolation was the few online training guides that said "don't give up until the dog is 18+ months old." That's not to say I didn't come home a couple days a week telling Faith that the dog had to go.

18+ months and some change later he's shaping up. He's still a highly energetic dog, but you can get him to follow commands more and more these days. He'd rather we didn't have another "puppy" (i.e. Zane) in the house vying for attention but the two of them are slowly getting to be better friends and play with each other. I can actually leave the house and work without putting him on a leash without fear of him running off. And while the cold weather has cut down on our long lunch/weekend hikes, he is getting better about staying close. There's still the occasional hike where Raz flushes some kind of animal and disappears for the next fifteen or twenty minutes. But I'm hoping that over time, like Zeke before him, he'll lose interest in that and stick with me instead.

As for chewing I hardly every worry about it these days. Then again he tends to still chew some things when he's alone with Faith (or maybe she's chewing them and blaming it on the dog?). Other traits he needs work on is taking little surreptitious nips at people and barking at random things (i.e. the neighbor moving, a half block away). On the other hand he's never climbed up on the counter or table to grab food, even though I've left raw meat out. Raz goes to work with me most days and will simply take a long nap for most of it, with breaks to see what everyone is eating or go outside into the nearby woods.

Dare I say it, but he's shaping up to be a real nice dog.