Wine for Our Puppy-Child

The longer that we have Tuco, the more it seems to me that the experience of having a dog from the time he's a young puppy really is very similar to that of raising a child.

Not just in the amount of time and energy they require, but also in the way in which both force us as adults to re-experience the world with them, go through a whole variety of firsts and milestones with them: first car-ride, first bath, first night alone in his crate, first trip to the doctor/vet, first shots, first day of kindergarten, first time away from Mom and Dad.

All the experiences we take for granted and no longer even think about, suddenly illuminated as new, confusing, exciting.

We gave Tuco a baby carrot to eat the other day, and he had no idea what to make of it. He ran around it, he sniffed at it, he picked it up in his mouth and dropped it. Steve finally went over to him with a baby carrot of his own, and showed Tuco that what he did with it was to bite it in half. Tuco immediately did the same. And there is was...yum...carrot...a whole new thing to eat.

We also have begun taking him to the beach. So many new smells and sensations that I no longer notice half the time. To me now, the beach is a whole entity, one solid concept. But watching him at the beach, I suddenly saw again all of the parts that make up the whole: the sand, and how different that feels to stand on than sidewalk or grass; the bits of shell that litter the sand, along with all of the different pebbles, all of those will smell different to Tuco; the bits of seaweed everywhere; the smell, sound and feel of the water itself.

Then there was the surprise on his face when the cold water rushed over his paws; the foam on the surface of the water which he tried to eat, the feeling of the sand sliding away underfoot as he waded deeper into the water; that sense of excitement and fear at the force of a wave; and the accomplishment of pulling a ball out of the water and bringing it back.

Just like kids, puppies lose their teeth, and go through adolescence. Tuco is just entering this stage of his development, and already we see moments of willfulness (why should I sit, Mom?), and bossiness (I want my food! I want to go out and play! I want to walk here, I don't want to walk there. Sine i don't want to walk there, I will lie down in the middle of the sidewalk. Go ahead...drag me.).

Just like with kids, we as parents have to introduce them to the world: how we walk down the street, how we meet other people and dogs, where we poop and pee and where we don't; how we behave when someone enters our home.

Just like parents of actual children, Steve and I are watching as Tuco's natural talents and abilities come to the fore. He is part Border Collie, a herding dog, and in the last few weeks, that herding instinct has made itself known to all of us.

He doesn't even know why he's doing it, but when we're in the dog park together, and another dog runs by, or can be seen running in the distance, Tuco takes off after him, swinging in a wide arc, always staying a certain distance behind, steering the other dog one way and another.

And can he run. He flies. He's only 7 months, and already he is faster than just about every other dog in the park. And it is an absolute joy to watch him run. Because you can see that he was made to do it, you can see that when he is running he is exhilarated, and free, and when Steve and I watch him, I think we then feel some of those things, too.

Finally, there are those lovely, quiet together moments. Tuco hangs out in the kitchen with me while I cook. And it's not that he's hovering by me, waiting for scraps, because he never gets any.

He just lies on his mat quietly, sometimes watching me, sometimes sleeping. He just wants to keep me company. And it reminds me of when I lived at home, I liked nothing more than sitting with my mother in the kitchen while she made dinner; sometimes I was helping, sometimes just telling her about my day.

Granted, Tuco is not chatting with me about his day, but it is that same experience of togetherness, of sharing, that makes me think of my mother, and makes me feel oddly comforted.

I don't mean to suggest that having a dog is exactly like having a baby, but it strikes me that there are a lot of similarities, more than I ever imagined, and i must say I am delighted by it.

My wine for our puppy-child is not an individual wine but rather a category: Cremant d'Alsace from Alsace, in northeastern France.

These are sparkling wines often made predominantly from the Pinot Blanc grape, and they offer an absolutely delicious and less expensive alternative to Champagne. While they may not have the finesse and richness of Champagne, they are bright, crisp and refreshing, as well as easy to drink and extremely food friendly.

Try a Lucien Albrecht Cremant d'Alsace Brut or Rose Brut. Price ranges from $13-$28 a bottle.

Wine for the Puppy Menace

Let me start off by saying that I love our puppy. Really I do. After all, who could resist a puppy with such ridiculously big ears? But he is, a lot of the time now, an absolute frickin' nightmare.

He seems to be going through a phase where he has decided he is going to test us. A lot. And then eat. And then just go completely crazy for no apparent reason. And then poop (outside, thank God). And then sleep. And then go crazy again. And then eat my socks.

I think I can sum up how Steve and I are feeling during this phase by saying that at the moment we love him most when he is sleeping. And when he has just woken up. Then he is an absolute darling. He rolls over on his back for belly rubs, he licks our hands and gazes into our eyes lovingly...all the while planning his next path of destruction.

He has decided that when he is in the backyard, rather than playing with the ball or little plastic puppy pool, what he really finds most enjoyable is eating mulch, clumps of dirt, and rocks. Oh and grass of course, lots and lots of grass.

He then comes back into the house and makes various hacking and acking sounds, but clearly is oblivious to the fact that he could avoid these delightful moments by just skipping the dirt-rock-mulch-grass combo. When we try to explain this to him, however, he just looks at us like "what?" and then chews on his foot for a while.

He has also decided that I'm not allowed to talk on the phone, or, for that matter, to anyone but him, and when I do, he starts growling and pulling on his leash and jumping on me to get my attention.

Today, as I tried to talk to my sister on the phone, he grabbed a paper towel off the coffee table and then went tearing around the house with it while I tried to catch him and take it away. Let me tell you, that sucker is fast, and can wedge himself into spaces where he knows I can't grab him, and he was changing direction and scooting past me like lightning, leaving paper towel shreds in his wake.

When I finally put him in his crate and closed the door, he gazed at me with those innocent, soft brown eyes, sweet as can be, one last white paper-towel shred hanging from his tooth, wondering, I'm sure, why Mama was so red-faced and sweaty.

It's not all bad, of course. We had a delightful moment this morning when he was sitting on his mat in our living room. I was trying to get him to lie down, but he wouldn't. He just kept sitting there with a slightly odd look on his face.

All of a sudden, a fairly expressive toot emanated from his rear. He seemed quite surprised by the whole event, and turned around to stare straight at his bum-hole, as if to ask "Was that you?"

Indeed it was. And let me just say that before that toot my hair was curly. Now, not so much.

My wine for the puppy menace is a cocktail that I made up at the restaurant one night when two diners really wanted an apple martini, and then asked for me to make then something fruity and kind of sweet when told that we can't make apple martinis.

The descriptive name is a mandarin grapefruit cosmo, but in honor of this post I will now call it the Mandarin Menace.

Here is how you make it:

In a cocktail shaker combine:

3/4 ounce mandarin vodka

1/4 ounce grapefruit vodka

1/2 ounce cointreau

1/4 ounce Luxardo Maraschino cherry liqueur

1/2 ounce fresh lime juice

1/2 ounce cranberry or pomegranate juice

simple syrup to taste

add ice and stir. Strain into chilled martini glass.

Garnish with Maraschino cherry and a few drops of the red Maraschino juice.

It is fruity and refreshing, but watch out: it's got bite!

Wine for the New Addition

Please welcome the newest member of our family: this little guy named Tuco.

We got him from Border Collie rescue about 3 weeks ago, and he's now 11 weeks old. In true puppy fashion, he has completely taken over our lives.

I have wanted a puppy since before i could talk, and when we weren't able to get one, I used to make my mom take me to a local pet store, and then would proceed to hold the puppies and cry.

Steve and I have been talking about getting a dog from practically the moment we met, and it took us 10 years to finally get one. You'd think that would have given us plenty of time to fully be prepared, but it seems to be one of those things in life for which one can never really be prepared.

The moment we got him home, we immediately felt at a total loss as to what the hell to do with him!

How much food do we feed him, and how often? How often does he need to pee? Poop? How often should we exercise him and for how long? What are all the vaccinations he needs? How much interaction can he have with people, places and other dogs before he's fully vaccinated? How do you control the desire to play tug of war with his leash, bark at us and eat my socks? What the hell is "crate training" and how does one do it? How do we take care of his coat, paws, teeth and ears? What the hell have we gotten ourselves into??!!

But gradually, as with everything, we have taken baby steps together and started to find our way.

The crate has turned out to be everybody's best friend, as the puppy seems to immediately relax and settle down the moment he goes in it, though the first few days were tricky, since the moment we walked away from him in the crate, he immediately started such a cacophony of whining and gibbering, you would have thought we had about fifteen different animals living with us instead of one.

This whining ranged from the chattering screech of a Gibbon in heat, then would give way to a sheep's bleating, and finally would settle down to a shivering quavering sigh, which would have been right at home on the fainting couch. He was like an episode of Wild Kingdom.

Housetraining has been pretty smooth as well, though getting up every few hours throughout the night to make sure he doesn't go in his crate, is not very fun.

And we have had a couple of accidents, all of which were our fault, as we let him out of his crate and let him get very excited before taking him outside to wee.

Two of these events occurred when I came home from work and he hadn't seen me in several hours, and the joy of our reunion proved too much for his little body and he wound up piddling on the floor.

I am ashamed to admit that there is a little bit of an ego boost in this: after all, when was the last time someone or some thing was so happy to see you they actually lost control of their bladder?

We have also been through the first vet visit, which started out very well with Tuco and the vet playing on the floor together, but then sadly took a wrong turn when the vet picked Tuco up and squeezed his as-yet-undescended-testicles to make sure they were where they should be.

After that Tuco moved as far away from the vet as he could without leaving the room, giving him a look over his shoulder which clearly said: "Dude. Really. Not cool."

All in all, I will say I think we are off to a pretty good start. Tuco now will sit, lie down and give a paw for a treat. He is clearly most excited about the paw trick, since he has started doing it completely unprompted, to both me and Steve as well as people he randomly meets on the street.

Really, it doesn't get much cuter than that.

My Wine for the New Addition is actually a cocktail that we serve at the restaurant where I work. It's called a Corpse Reviver #2, and it has gin, Lillet Blanc, Cointreau, lemon juice and a splash of Absinthe.

I am not normally a gin-lover, and sometimes the licorice flavor of Absinthe can be too much for me, but there is something about the combination of the ingredients that yields a delicious cocktail.

It's light, refreshing, slightly sweet, and the Absinthe gives it just the right taste of something special at the end.

It's just the pick-me-up one might need after a night of waking up with the piddling Gibbon-puppy, and I promise if you come by the restaurant I'll make you one, but first you have to give me your paw.