As his fur grows out, Atticus is starting to look more like an Affenpinscher than a Shih Tzu. If you added a bushy curled tail and longer ears to the dog in the Animal Discovery Affenpinscher link above, it could pass as a picture of Atticus. I seem to be seeing a lot of Affenpinscher behavior too.
Atticus wearing his green sweater
Not sure what all genes went into the rolling of his genetic dice, but he turned out well. I’m not curious enough to get him a DNA test, but interesting to speculate. It is a great excuse to look at dog pictures on the internet too.
I came across The Adventures of Tom & Atticus. That Atticus is a miniature schnauzer who climbs mountains. Maybe Atticus is a good name for spunky little dogs? Looks like that Atticus endorses the same brand of snow booties that I saw at Romani’s Pet World recently.
For the past couple weeks Atticus has been scratching beside his plastic kibble dish and carrying it around in his mouth, often setting it in front of me as I relax in bed. Back in April when he was scared to be anywhere except on the bed we started to feed him on an end table. He could reach his food and water dishes from the bed without putting his paws on the floor to eat and drink. We had been putting his kibble into a Kong toy so that he can play with it on the bed while eating, but he didn’t seem to want that. Much of his play in the past two months has been taking a toy to the edge of the bed and pushing it then pulling it back, eventually it falls to the floor and he jumps down and retrieves it.
Yesterday I finally caught on. He wanted me to put the dish of kibble on the floor!
Another breakthrough in cross-species communication.
Last week he got to meet (and charm) my brother and sister-in-law. They are still mourning the recent loss of Chance, a blue heeler they raised from a pup. It was interesting to see the hand signals they used for Chance who was born deaf as they played with Atticus at my dad’s house.
There has been some colder weather and frost most mornings, but just had two days of sunshine. At less than a week before Thanksgiving doesn’t feel like the middle of November. I retrieved my folding snow shovel from the self-storage unit to prepare for snow. Atticus has gotten very efficient at his trips outdoors.
