Day One With Our Covid Lockdown Puppy

My daughter has always wanted a dog. My husband and I were always against it. Neither of us wants the hassle or the smell in the house or the inability to leave the house without worrying about a dog.

But like thousands of others during Covid and lockdown, we’ve taken the plunge.

We have one child. She’ll be less lonely. We tell ourselves a dog will teach her responsibility. She will feed it and take it on walks. She might even put her iPhone down, now and again.

Like me, my husband now also works from home. We can do this.

I start checking pets4homes. Then one day up pops 7.5 month-old Milo. A woman bought him during Covid lockdown last June but then learned she had to return to an office. I was her first caller.

Milo is an adorable white and apricot cavapoo puppy. This is a good breed for us. Cavapoos are small and smart, gentle, and hypo-allergenic. Milo is housebroken. He already sleeps through the night. He seems too good to be true.

BRINGING PUPPY HOME

We drive two hours from Wimbledon to Warwick. On the way to meet Milo, our daughter is like a puppy herself. I try to dampen her spirit. The truth is I'm having second thoughts. Do I really want to tie myself to a pet?

“It doesn’t have to be this dog,” I say. “Keep an open mind. Make sure you want to spend the next 15 years, or more, with him. He’ll be like a member of the family. It has to feel right.”

My husband smiles. The second we said the words “yes” and “dog,” Milo was our dog. I might as well be telling Milo to take his time and keep an open mind. “There will be other steaks, Milo.”

It’s love at first sight. Milo is perfect, says our daughter. The handover is done in minutes, and we’re back in the car. The two-hour ride home with our new dog is surprisingly calm.

We’d heard stories of puppies throwing up and peeing on their new owners. Milo (renamed Leo) is relaxed and sweet. He barks just once when a bicyclist veers too near. Our daughter wraps Leo in a blanket. For the two-hour drive, the puppy sleeps on and off, cuddled against her. She says it’s like she’s dreaming. There are tears in her eyes.

Inside our house, my husband sets up the “crate.” It looks more like a doggy jail to me, but what do I know? We fill it with blankets, his bed, and a toy. I tell myself the cage is only temporary. As soon as Leo is comfortable here, we’ll let him sleep upstairs in his bed beside our daughter’s bed.

Leo trots around the house, sniffing in corners. He doesn’t chew a thing. Not a single bark. He’s so quiet and such a good dog. I set out his food dish and water. In minutes, it’s like we’ve had him for years.

We let Leo run in the back garden. He helpfully pees in a patch of weeds in a corner where no one walks. “Good boy, Leo!”

Maybe this will be easy, I think.

Two of our daughter’s friends show up. They hang out in the garden, admiring Leo. “He’s such a cute puppy!” they shout. Our daughter is beaming.

I race off to get my phone to take photos. I think we were right to take this leap, even if it is scary.

When I return, one of the girls has helpfully piled up shards of ceramic she found near a broken vase in the garden.

I cleaned the house from top to bottom, removing shoes and magazines, stuffed animals, and pulling cords from outlets. But I wasn’t thinking about the garden. My husband keeps the grass neatly trimmed and the leaves raked. But I should have done more than a quick check for holes in the fence. Maybe I’m not as ready for this as I think.

That’s when our daughter’s other friend walks up with a railroad spike in her hand. It’s rusty and sharp and looks centuries old.

“Where did you find that?” I ask in horror.

“In the dirt by the tree,” she says. “Should I keep looking?”

LEO SETTLES IN

The girls are making TikToks with Leo. He’s wide awake. But he’s not cooperating. They can’t keep him in the screen. He’s running around in circles and barking. Not so quiet either, I note.

More coos all around, a final TikTok, and I usher the girls out.

My daughter suggests we do a quick training. The puppy needs to learn his name. The day before, we binge-watched Zak George dog training videos. Zak makes training look easy and fun!

Armed with doggy treats, my daughter and I sit on the floor at opposite ends of the kitchen. She says, “Come, Leo.” He stares at her blankly.

It’s going to take a while for him to learn his new name, I explain. Try telling him to sit. She says, “sit,” and Leo sits and gets a treat. I call him over. He doesn’t budge. I hold up the treat and say, “Come here.” He comes. I say, “sit.” Leo sits. I say “sit” again. He sits, lays down, and rolls over, all in one go, as if to say, “Hey lady, just hand over the rest of the treats.”

I’m exhausted. It’s been a long day. Four hours on the road. So much excitement. Leo looks tired too, but is running in circles around the kitchen table. He’s probably hyped up from too many visitors and too many treats. He wants to play chase and is nipping at our ankles. I tell him “no,” but he won’t stop biting. I shoo him out the back door and leave him in the cold to settle down.

I think we all need to chill out. I suggest a movie. We should cuddle up on the sofa with Leo.

There’s only one sofa in the house we’ve agreed to let Leo use, at least for now. It’s in the TV room and is stained from our daughter’s younger, more artistic days. It’s covered in an equally ratty blanket. Our daughter turns on Ferris Beuller’s Day Off.

And there we are, like a postcard family with a dog. All cuddled up, watching a favorite movie. I think to make popcorn, but I don’t want to spoil the moment. It lasts about a minute. Leo is bored or agitated, or afraid. Or is just being a puppy. He starts gnawing on the blanket.

I say “no” in a measured tone, just like Zak does. Very calm, no negativity implied. If the puppy unclenches his jaws for the slightest second, I’ll praise him to the moon. But he doesn’t relax his jaw; he tightens it. I gently tug at the blanket while pleading, “No, Leo. Please let go.”

Leo’s eyes flash. So do his teeth. He growls at me. Our daughter backs off the sofa.

“Leo, let go,” I say more firmly.

He sinks his teeth in deeper.

Our daughter flinches. She’s suddenly afraid of this dog. Do any of us really know him?

“He’ll calm down,” my husband says.

I yank up the blanket hard. Leo comes with it, his feet in the air. I say, “Bad dog!” I’m sure Zak would advise against saying that. We can’t have Leo internalising badness.

I’m thinking my mother would have swatted Britta, our hulking German Shepherd, on the nose. And that would have been the end of that. I say let’s just let him gnaw a bit. It’s not going to hurt anything.

We all settle down. But the moment is gone. Our daughter asks to go to her room. She wants to look at her iPhone. Call her friends. My husband goes upstairs to read. I switch off the movie.

LEO GOES TO BED

Our daughter is fast asleep. My husband is still reading. It’s just Leo and me on the cold kitchen floor next to his cage. I’m pleading with him to crawl inside and go to sleep. I feel so tired.

It’s at that moment, Leo goes outside to relieve himself. Before I can get out there to scoop up the poop with my new biodegradable baggies, he eats it.

I yell for my husband. He comes running downstairs.

“I think I might be sick,” I say. “He ate his poo. Can you please clean up his face? I think it’s sticking to his fur.”

“I thought you were a dog person,” my husband laughs before turning to Leo. “You have not covered yourself in glory, my friend.”

He chases him around the garden before finally catching him and checking his face.

“It’s clean,” he says. “Maybe he ate a leaf.”

“Maybe,” I say. I make a mental note to Google: “What does it mean if a dog eats his own poo.”

My husband returns upstairs. I return to the kitchen floor. “Please Leo, crawl into your crate,” I beg. “It’s nightie night time.”

I don’t want to just shove him in there. I lay down on the floor, mimicking sleep. It could work. Leo cocks his head to one side. I could swear he raises a single eyebrow.

I send a text to his previous owner. I can’t get him to sleep, I explain.

She says she lets him fall asleep in their lounge and then carries him gently to his bed.

I lay my head on the cool tile. I think I might just fall asleep here. Leo snuggles in next to me. I wrap his pink blanket around him — one he was given with his mother’s scent when he first left his litter. We stay like this for a while.

Suddenly, I feel tender and protective toward this vulnerable puppy who is so far from home. Eventually, Leo rises and trots over to his cage and climbs into bed. I sit there quietly, waiting for him to sleep.