The Word Cloud

We've had Bernie- our labrador puppy for four and a half weeks. He is now twelve and a half weeks old.

Last week he went on his first walk and now has three to four walks every day- mainly back and forth to the school as that is largely what my day consists of.

He's a fairly clever pup; in the first week- age just 2 months he learned to 'sit', and give his 'paw'. He now knows 'beg' and will 'lie down' if I give him a treat. He refuses to 'lie down' without a treat though.

He knows 'get in your bed' and will readily get in his bed whenever he's been in the garden. He also knows 'Din-dins' and 'walkies'.

He has a poo after every meal- in the garden where he should do it and he's even dry in the morning when we get up.

So...I believe that the dog is not a total moron, which pleases me.

What I can't understand though is the second he steps foot onto a carpeted surface he pees himself.

I have forgiven most things;
 breaking out of the kitchen, racing upstairs and seeking out and devouring one very beautiful and more importantly comfortable silver sandal. He's ripped several items of clothing, totally destroyed the cat's scratching post, ripped blinds, chewed drawer handles, eaten plants, killed the honeysuckle, flattened the reeds around the pond....

All of it is forgiven because he's a baby wolf and he's just doing what baby wolfs would do- if they lived in houses.

What I can't get over is his preference for carpet over grass when seeking out a suitable toilet.

He's now banned from the living room- poor soul. He has the run of the back lobby, kitchen and of course garden, but I no longer let him into the rest of the house. During the day I'm either in the kitchen or garden anyway and at night time he tends to take himself off to bed when the kids go up. So this hasn't been much of a problem.

I do think it's a shame though. It would be nice to see him curled up at the end of the sofa.

...a labrador retriever to be exact. A yellow one to be even more specific. In fact let's cut to the chase, it's a boy and he's 8 weeks old- or will be 8 weeks old when we collect him on Saturday. The thing is, we still don't have a name for him.

I like Rufus, Dexter and Oscar, the husband has flatly refused to name the dog any of those names. We quite like Barney but now I'm worried he'll grow out that name when he's all grown up.

The kids like, Bernard (I don't) Super Mario and Bowser. The latter isn't too bad actually and Bernard would be ok if shortened to Bernie

Last night we thought the name 'Wilbur' but the kids don't like it.

So the only names we all (kind of) agree on are Bowser and Bernie. I don't mind those names but I don't love them either.

I am hoping, therefore that this blog might encourage some more suggestions from Clouders.

I do have quite an extensive list of silly names as provided by Facebookers but I shall wait and see what you guys come up with before sharing any of those names! It will be interesting to see how many, if any, are duplicated.