the things we do for love

Yesterday we had a visit from EJ's trainer, Jorge. We first met Jorge when we adopted EJ from the ASPCA (yes, it's adoption all around for our family). Jorge taught the ASPCA's required puppy kindergarten class, and also paid us a couple of in-home visits, because EJ was described to us as, umm, "special" (and he is!). Of course, "special" then meant he liked to chew the bottom of our couch, eat through cardboard boxes, and bite his way through his doggie gate.

Since those early days, EJ has been a pretty well-behaved dog, albeit with a bit of a mischevious side. But lately we've had a few behavioral issues we wanted to work on and we figured we should also start thinking about how our little king was going to deal with a new addition to the family. So we invited Jorge back for a visit.

Among other things, Jorge suggested we start to purchase some of the things we will need for our child, including lotions, a CD of baby sounds, and a stroller, so that EJ can get used to the smells and sounds and activity that our new addition will bring. We also talked about buying a baby doll and paying attention to it to get EJ used to us focusing on someone other than him.

Most of Jorge's ideas made a lot of sense and will hopefully help lessen the shock to EJ when we do bring our child home, but there was one suggestion I'm just not sure I'm cool with. You see, Jorge suggested that we might want to take our stroller for walks with EJ to get him used to it. Now I know we live in NYC, where you pretty much can and do see anything and everything, but I kind of feel like it's one thing to observe... another to participate. But anyway, we want to do right by EJ and our child, so if you see me and Ryan and EJ out for a walk with our baby doll (smothered in baby lotion) in his stroller, with baby cries streaming from the iPod, well, you'll understand ;)