Loving our puppy!

So, Harley's been with us for a week now and last night on our way home from Walmart I mentioned to Paul that I feel like he's been with us much longer then that. We both feel we lucked out in the "new dog" department.

I feel as though I should knock on wood every time I say this, but, he's amazing. He really is a good little guy. He (for the most part) knows he is not allowed to touch our new couch. He has such a bouncy personality. We enjoy watching him trot everywhere he goes and watching his ears flop from side to side.

When he first came home with us he was not quite sure if we were ok with him just coming up to us to be pet. So... he would lay on his belly and scoot himself along the floor with his front legs. Paul said it looked like he was army crawling. He'd stop every time we would look at him so we would watch him from the corner of our eyes and laugh as he would inch closer.

For those of you who we haven't told, Harley is Beagle/Hound mix. We realized after we paid for him that he will either bark a lot or howl a lot. Believe it or not (knock on wood again), he does not make a sound. Well, that was until we took him to the vet last Saturday. you would guess he would bark at other dogs or the noise cats that were in the waiting room... oh no, not Harley... he waited until we were in the examining room and we started hearing him growl. He was growling at a fly. A FLY! Of all things. Not people or other animals... a fly. We believe he ate the fly b/c we did not see him after Harley chased him around the room for a few minutes. Maybe he had a tiny heart attack and died. Anyway, he does so well around our neighbors 4 year old son and the other dogs in the neighborhood.

We had our first bad walking experience 2 mornings ago. We have 30 ft retractable leash and Harley accidentally pulled it out of my hands while we were walking back toward the house. The leash began to retract very quickly and Harley thought it was chasing him. He took off like a mad man up to road barking and whimpering. The leash made a sharp turn in front of Harley which made him take off in the opposite direction. I was able to grab him as he tried running past me. We sat together in the middle of the road for a while while he trembled. Poor little guy was terrified of the leash for the rest of his walk.

Last little tid bit. And whoever reads this may be able to give us a little advice. Harley refuses to go potty in our yard. We can take him a foot into our neighbors yard and he's fine (we always clean up after him btw)... but he won't go in our yard. It's very annoying and very frustrating!