Progress

Despite the lightheartedness of previous entries into this blog life with Henry was hard work. I'm a really patient person when it comes to animals, realising that they cannot speak and usually any trouble they are in is due to us humans. So faced with a dog who had been so badly neglected as Henry my patience was super high.

My sleep levels weren't. Every night I would let Henry and Molly out for a pee last thing before we went to bed. I'd settle the dogs down on their beds, pull the living room door to and go to my own bed.

After five minutes Henry would get up, wander around and start to howl, bark, cry, whine, jump, run and generally cause havoc. Other Half had said he didn't want dogs in the bedroom so I had to close the door over but I think this was what was making Henry get all stressed. I persisted nonetheless as Molly was quite happy downstairs and I was sure Henry would settle in time.

The barking and howling was rather hard to sleep to though and it would go on for hours every single night, then he would settle down at about 2 or 3am only to start again at around 5.30am.

I'd get up at around 6ish, get a rapturous welcome of a two springing stripey hounds jumping up like mad things the moment I opened the door (Molly never used to do that) and find all sorts of deposits left for me by Henry.

It wasn't easy, as cleaning up dog poo, dog pee and avoiding getting jumped all over first thing in the morning by two very big dogs can test the patience of a saint, beleive me.

So after a few nights, Other Half decided he wasn't putting up with the howling and barking any more and he yelled at Henry to shut up at about 12.30am. It worked. I was amazed. But I still had to clear up the poo and pee the next morning, and avoid the mad jumping up and he was still starting to howl and bark at 5.30am.

My patience persisted though, and my progress was getting nowhere, at one point I decided I must be the most patient person in the world as surely no-one could be so sleep deprived and still happily clean up poo in their pyjamas at 6.40am ever morning.

I really didn't know what else to do other than be patient. I was sure Henry would settle down eventually, in the 6 months he had been alive he had been with his mother, then gone to another home, then left to wander and fend for himself, then picked up by the dog warden, put into the dog pound, put on death row, given a repreive by the lovely ladies at Greyhounds Galore, put into their kennel and and then come to live with me. That was five homes (that I know of) in six months and he was still really a big pup who no-one had bothered to socialise, train or let him know what was expected of him so to be patient with him was all I could do for him just now until he settled.

I'm Henry the 8th I am I am

By now we'd had the new dog five days. He still didn't have a name and he still wasn't housetrained. Ok I didn't expect him to be housetrained by now but he really should have a name.

I had decided against FergusII as this dog just was Fergus and it seemed wrong to Fergus to semi erase him by giving his name to another dog. But that left me with a problem because for years I'd always said I'd call my next dog FergsII, so I was on the hunt for another name.

I decided to look up baby naming websites as I thought this was as good a place as any to get a name but have you seen how many names are out there? It was impossible, espcecially as the dog was holding back on his personality due to so much happening to him in a week, although he was showing slight signs of the madness attached to all the dogs I've had.

There were lots of things to consider in choosing the dogs name, would it be badly out of fashion in a few years? Would I always have to explain why I called him what I did? Would I always have to spell it at the vets, groomers etc? Would it sound ridiculous being shouted out loud in public?

So many dilemas and without a single idea.

I decided to start at A and work my way through the alphabet until somthing hit me.

To start with I tried Fergus. This only proved to make Molly come tearing up to me looking for Fergus. Other half suggested Taxi in response to the calling out loud in public problem, but he wasn't a taxi he was a dog! I quite fancied Saluk as he is a half (or more Saluki) but Other Half said that was just silly. So again I was stuck.

Then a trailer for the BBC series The Tudors came on tv. I'm really into history and while Jonathan Rhys Myers was breifly on the screen it came to me in a flash. Henry the 8th had ginger hair. The new dog has ginger fur (with stripes which I'm sure Henry the 8th didn't have but you never know) and I'm really into history so there it was.

I went out into the garden with the dog and as he wandered around I called Henry and he came bombing up to me so the decision had been made, Henry was here. Henry the Leaphound was yet to make himself apparent.