Never a More Fitting Blog Title

April 21 - In a death-defying gamble, I opted to take Truman with me when I went to lunch with an old college friend and his fiancee, who were here from out of state.

Let me first say that it's unbelievable, how much exercise this dog requires.

I had taken him for our customary morning walk, then played with him for a while in the hope that he might be sleepy enough to snooze under the table at lunch. Foolish mortal! What was I thinking? After a 30-minute drive, he had recharged enough to cause plenty of trouble at the restaurant.

Fortunately, it was a fairly casual place, and not crowded, and we were sitting outside. The wait staff was lovely about the fact that my dear little beastie is a loudmouth -- we weren't seated five minutes before he decided that I wasn't paying proper attention to him, and began barking at me. And growling. And biting. I spent much of the rest of the meal with a fork in my right hand and a compressed rawhide bone in my left, in an attempt to simultaneously enjoy my food and keep His Majesty from further speaking his mind. I had exhausted all my tricks for keeping him still under the table; he simply refused to cooperate. And heaven knows you can't do a whole lot of correcting in public...there are people who just don't understand, and you don't want to leave a bad impression of the school or the program.

The four of us took a seemingly endless (to Truman) 45-minute walk after lunch, which I thought would certainly bring the mantle of sleep to his little eyes. Worked fine in the car, but as soon as we got home, he was back to full speed and flashing teeth mode.

It was frustrating, and loads of fun to explain to my friend and his fiancee (whom I was meeting for the first time) that this is the WORST I've ever seen him behave in public. They seemed to like him anyway, though, at least enough to risk being close enough to his Gaping Jaws of Peril for a photographic souvenir:



And that is the mark of a true friend. Thanks, Jeremy. :)