Eddie

I haven't written here for a while. Trying to adjust my schedule to our newest family addition: Eddie the 2-year old Treeing Walker Coon Hound. He has been with us for two weeks now and is just starting to setting into our family.

We found Eddie at the Humane Society. Nell had been begging us for a dog, and one afternoon Brian and I cracked and we made a family trip to the dog pound. We stayed for about an hour and didn't see any A-Ha! dogs. Just as we were about to leave, one of the workers walked in with Eddie and for Brian and me it was love at first sight. Nell had set her sights on a smaller dog, but once she saw we were serious about Eddie, she quickly changed her tune.

Eddie is about 50 pounds and he looks like a beagle on stilts. He has the same coloring and ears as a beagle, but longer legs. Brian calls him a beagle and a half. As I write this he is bouncing around the living room desperate for a romp and a play.

The day we brought him home he was painfully shy. He cowered in the basement and wouldn't eat. He had been at a different Humane Society location for months before coming to ours 2 weeks ago. Coon Hounds need lots of exercise, and he clearly wasn't getting enough. He was frightened and freaked out and depressed.

He gets tons of exercise here, which has endeared us to him forever I think. I take him for long runs early in the morning, the kids and I walk him around the block after breakfast, Brian plays with him in the yard in the afternoons, and Nell and one of us takes him around the block again in the evenings. If he would only stay inside the electric fence, his outdoor life would be complete.

I like having a running partner during my dark early morning runs. Eddie is mostly good on the leash, but he does get easily spooked. I tried to take him under the I95 bridge on River Road yesterday and he nearly had a heart attack with the trucks and police cars roaring overhead. He pulled me all the way home, Gentle Leader collar be damned.

I am running a 50K on Sunday and it's tempting to take him along. I bet he could make it, especially at the pace I am planning to run. I wonder what the dog policy is for trail races? I've never seen a dog in a long race, but that may be because most dogs can't run that far. Eddie could! ("Treeing Walker Coon Hounds will run tirelessly in pursuit of game." I have no trouble believing that.)

Once we teach the boys not to act so bizarrely around Eddie, we'll be home free. They never pass up an opportunity to freak the dog out. They dance around him, fake wrestle, poke him, anything to get a rise out of him. Makes me a little nuts. Eddie too, I'd imagine. I give it another week until the novelty wears off.

But Eddie is a great homeschool project for Nell. She goes with Brian to his obedience classes and is learning how to handle him beautifully. She adores Eddie and the feeling is clearly mutual.