The one with all the poo.

Do you ever find that your inspiration, for whatever it may be, strikes at the weirdest times?

Inspiration usually hits me the second I close my eyes to go to sleep; a million and one thoughts from the day filter through my mind and I see hear (sounds sinister) vivid sentences of how I would tell you all (in blog form) about the funny or frustrating thing that happened that day. When this happens, I text myself. That’s right, I have a text conversation between me and me going on and I highly recommend it; it’s very cathartic.

However I also text myself other things such as items we need from the shop and appointment reminders. My current me-to-me text screen looks like:

Me to me texts (don’t judge that I have 237 unread texts plz) x

I’m awaiting a welfare call from O2 anyyyy day now to be honest!

Inspiration hit me like a ton of bricks on Sunday evening, which is a surprisingly nice and welcomed change from the usual SMONDAY feeling (you know, the moment Sunday stops feeling like a Sunday and the anxiety of Monday kicks in).

Sunday evening Paul, Charlie and I settled down to watch the film ‘Marley and Me’. I imagine many of you have watched ‘Marley and Me’ before, as have I, but Paul had not; discovering the function of human eye brows AND watching ‘Marley and Me’, big week for Paul.

I genuinely think a film can change your life but maybe I’m being dramatic (shock)? I certainly think a film can change your perspective though; if only for a little while.

You know when you watch a really good film just at the right time that you needed to watch it to have that eye opening moment where you are like “I need to be more grateful” or “I need to spend more time with my family” or if the film is really good then “THIS IS WHAT IS REALLY IMPORTANT IN LIFE”?

There a few films I’ve watched in my time that have this effect on me (and my perception) these are; Click, About Time, In Time and Marley and Me for anyone who is wondering. Side note: I’d love to hear any of your life changing film recommendations in the comments. Well, Sunday night was exactly that but first I am going to take you through what feels like a hectic week.

I don’t know if I’m alone with this vibe but honestly the last week, for me, has felt hectic? I don’t know if it has been hectic in my own mind or hectic in real life, but its been hectic nonetheless.

Paul and I work in very different jobs; he is an Electronic Engineer for a car company and I’m a Children’s Mental Health Practitioner for the NHS. We are both lucky enough to still be in work, given the current situation. However, we are exactly that; STILL WORKING, from home… with an energetic Charlie! Charlie is 13 weeks old now and in the last week or so I have definitely noticed a change in his energy levels (and the size of the poo he now produces). Those cute little ‘mad half-hours’ we used to refer to are definitely getting longer and more adventurous; adventurous, as in kamikazing off the back of the sofa whilst I’m attempting to have a professional video conference call, adventurous. He has had his second set of puppy vaccinations and is almost allowed to go for walks and BOYYYYYY is he ARE WE ready for them; this dog needs wearing out!

Monday morning, whilst on my morning team meeting call, I clocked Charlie out of the corner of my eye ‘sniffing low’ and ‘circling’; both of which are tell-tale signs he’s about to poo. I found myself once again trying to telepathically send messages to my dog; though this time not remorseful messages like in grape gate. No, no, this time I’m sending authoritative telepathic messages like “DON’T. YOU. DARE.”, quickly followed by a slightly less authoritative “OK PLEASE, PLEASE DON’T?”.

YEP, he did.

Charlie dropped one and not just any one, a big morning one, on the floor in front of me. What’s worse, he looked me DEAD in the eye whilst doing so. SLY. So whilst my colleagues discuss and attentively listen to serious business continuity plans and service offers, I’m mouthing *censored* “NO. VERY. NAUGHTY” whilst picking up poo. What a time to be alive!

I feel like I spent the WHOLE of Saturday attempting to discipline Charlie speaking to myself. It was one big shouty blur of “No Charlie”, “Get down, Charlie”, “Get back here with that”, “No biting”, “No biting”, “NO BITING”.

OH.

MY.

GOD.

THE BITING!

Charlie loves nothing more than a juicy, fleshy human hand in his mouth; though a stolen dirty sock may come close. We know he’s not biting us aggressively and this bitey/chewy stage of puppy-hood is like a rite of passage but, IT HURTS! Initially Paul and I were like “Aw cute little bities”, “He’s showing us affection”, “Awwwww he lovessss usssssss” as Charlie savagely chomped down on our hands. However, 4 weeks and some broken skin later, not so cuties guys!

We’ve tried the “NO BITING” thing for a while. We’ve tried replacing our hands with numerous different chew toys. We’ve tried ‘time out’ in puppy prison. Quite frankly we are getting nowhere fast. So now, now we’re trying something new, something a little ‘outside of the box’, something you won’t find in a puppy training book or in a YouTube video, something ‘innovative’ if you like. Paul is learning German through work so right now we’re trying “Charlie, KEIN BEIßEN” which is the German translation for “NO BITING” and it weirdly seems to work. Maybe our boy is from German heritage? *checks KC registration blood line*.

Paul and I refer to Charlie’s puppy teeth as “The Shredders” and this week “The Shredders” have had a ball (I wish I was referring to the round rubber object).

The Shredders” ft a brief glimpse of a previously white rug

Charlie and “The Shredders” have successfully made their way through a new foam dog mattress, a crocodile (R.I.P) chew toy, a watermelon squeaker, a rope tug-of-war toy and a gym top; that’s the last few days alone. Honestly, the amount of times I’ve had my whole hand in Charlie’s mouth this week has been a joke; my friend Hanna tells me you aren’t an official paw-rent until you’ve had your hand deep within the crevices of your dog’s mouth (and beyond). Lucky us!

Despite my hands in his mouth 90% of the week, Charlie managed to successfully INGEST the bright green foam from inside his mattress. I’m seriously out here worrying about if the food we feed him is good enough and if it has enough meat content and this guy will literally just eat foam insulation? Said ingestion resulted in a nice bright green poo for us the next day (yay!). This blog is inadvertently turning out to be a lot more poo focused than originally planned, apologies if anyone is eating. Whilst we are on a roll with the poo stories though..

The day that Charlie moved to his forever home, he made his presence well known by christening (A.K.A weeing on) the living room rug, whilst on FaceTime to Paul’s mum actually! For the last four weeks said rug has been rolled up and stored safely away from any puppy urine (and the shredders). This week we made the bold move of returning the rug to its rightful spot.

Within the hour there was a little wet patch on the rug; no biggie a mother can forgive a little excited dribble can’t she? The culprit was not caught on the first occasion but he was later spotted returning to the scene of the crime for further criminalities. These ‘further criminalities’ I refer to are not just little excited wee wee dribbles anymore; no, no we’re talking poo now. The other day I caught Charlie hot in the act, legs spread, hunched over, mid squat, bang center of the rug, about to go for sheer gold!

I relive the following in true feature film slow motion style. I clock the squat, we lock eyes and I shout “NOOOOOOOOOO NOT ON THEEEE RUGGGGGGGGGGG” as I drop what I’m doing to Baywatch style run towards Charlie. I swiftly pick him up, split second thoughts racing through my mind “I’m never going to make it outside in time”, “where next?”, “Next best thing, next best thing”, “PUPPY MAT!”. In a blind panic, I swing around the living room door accidentally giving Charlie’s already peaking poo a little side-ward gravity. An unsuspecting Paul, sitting in his office, turns around to be greeted by a small amount of poo slow-motion flying through the air before taking a skid landing directly at his feet. Honestly, Paul and I have laughed so hard about this since, but at the time I was so stressed and so frustrated; I was doing a lot of things but laughing was not one of them.

As I write this I’m considering if what I’m actually describing to you all here is just real life kicking in. Maybe for the past 4 weeks we’ve been in some sort of ‘puppy-moon’ period where we’ve only seen the good because we’ve been so loved up that even the bad has been considered to be cute or funny? Maybe I’m tired this week? Maybe it’s our ever growing pup becoming more confident and challenging? Maybe he’s a little asshole sometimes? Maybe it’s the uncertainty that we are presented with in the news daily making me anxious? Maybe it’s Maybelline? Who knows? But it doesn’t matter because ALL of that went out the window on Sunday night when we watched ‘Marley and Me’.

Paul and I are both not afraid to say that on Sunday night we SOBBED! We sobbed for the dogs we have lost and we proper ugly cried at the thought of ever loosing Charlie in the future; he’s literally 13 weeks old and I’m like “DON’T YOU DARE EVER DIE!“. After the film, we lay on the living room floor, for about an hour, just FREAKING Charlie out by staring at him and telling him how amazing he is (he’s totally developing an ego). We told him (in English so he might not have understood) that we started a family the day we met him, we promised him all the best times (probably over promised actually as I recall committing to at least an hour of belly rubs a day). I genuinely sniffled to Paul “I’ll never tell him off for weeing on the rug again”. Needless to say Lord Charlie slept, like the spoilt little baby he is, slap bang between Paul and I in bed that night.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure in a few hours days’ time I’ll be back to shouting at Charlie for chewing another expensive item of clothing or cursing him for having to scrub the poor rug for the 600th time in a week but, for now, I am appreciating the sleepy little German chap right next to me for exactly what he is; asshole behaviour and all. Charlie makes some of the days more stressful but he makes ALL of the days more enjoyable.

Sometimes in life you need a little perspective check; a reminder to take the bad with the good because it all makes up the memories. The Sunday night film was that ‘perspective check’ for me and I hope this blog post can be that for you.

Quick, go and squeeze your doggos!

Bald Sprechen,

Rachael, Paul and Charlie x

Charlie ruining pictures and rugs since 2020 x