Dog pants.

No, not this kind.

As I type this the little dog, Nipper, is in the pen behind me, having finished up his morning pants. He pants 5000000 times a day to keep in shape. He's perfectly healthy, says the vet, so it must work. But Nipper is fortunate to be perfectly healthy just now, because I nearly committed Nippercide this morning.

Let me back up.

As I said yesterday, the end of the world was coming in the form of a nor'easter. Well, we're still here, and I hope you are too. Didn't even lose power, at least not yet. The storm laid down a nice thick coat of ice and slush and topped it with delicious frosty snow. It's not thick, but it's very heavy and very treacherous. They closed all the schools, not surprisingly. You could go down fast and hard in this stuff.

Enter my puppy.

I pause for a moment to try to think of a good analogy for going on the porch in a slick ice storm with an excited 75-pound puppy on a leash, but there's nothing quite as stupid, very little so primed for injury. The kid pulls like a Clydesdale, only they can be trained. Multiple times I almost got pulled off my feet, but you can't let go because he's got a history of breaking for the road.

I managed to stay upright and unfractured, as did Nipper. I shoved him in the backyard kennel to teach him a lesson, though, where he promptly pooped and played with his toys. It's like trying to punish a kid by sending him to his room. He's got his laptop, Xbox, and hidden snacks in there; you just did him a favor. 

Fortunately my wonderful wife stopped me from throttling the little creep. She reminded me that our older dog, Tralfaz, is a very good chap now, as affectionate as one could hope from a Nordic breed, but he didn't start out that way.

Some months ago she said that puppies were cute but dogs were much better. Puppies are destructive, completely self-centered, and sometimes very aggressive. By the time they grow up they're less cute, but have improved in every other way. The cuteness keeps us from committing acts of aggression of our own.

However, I will say that Nipper is at that age where a lot of family dogs wind up in the shelter, because the little controllable puppy isn't controllable anymore, plus he's got all the negative baby traits and hormones.

I hope he gets it together soon. We're not going to give up on him, of course not, and I'm not really going to hurt or kill him. But I'd better work on getting myself better patience in the meantime. And balance.