Five months old!

In all the drama and excitement of Adagio’s graduation last week, it may seem as if we’ve been overlooking Dilly. That’s not true. We’re having a blast living with this guy. He’s not as devoted to napping as Adagio was (but who could be?). Yet Dilly still spends plenty of time snoozing, which makes him easy to live with. His digestive ailments have all but disappeared. We’re still feeding him the special (expensive) Royal Canin Dogfood for the Gastrointestinally Sensitive. However, we’ve begun combining it with the more plebeian Science Diet puppy chow, and that transition appears to be going well.

His coat is changing color and texture, from a milky down to a coarser, curly cinnamon and cream (although the top of his head and his ears still are soft as mink). He’s growing like crazy — gaining 10 pounds a month for each of the past two months. He weighed 40 pounds this morning! This has transformed his appearance, from this:

Three months old

To this:

Five months old

You can still tell he’s a puppy. But he’s no longer the traffic-stopping fluff ball of his early days. Soon he’ll just look like a lanky young golden retriever.

We’ll love him anyway. He’s attentive and eager to please and he often makes us laugh. We still have much to work on, chief among which is his behavior on the leash, when we’re out walking. Sometimes he’s in the perfect position:

Like this

But all too quickly, he edges out in front of us, not exactly pulling, but eager to lead the way. Happily we have what feels like an ocean of time in front of us. (He’s not scheduled to be turned in until May of 2021.)