After dinner, Kisa and I were playing with the ball and it rolled under TV tray. When I tried to recover it, the tray attacked me! I tried to get away, but it chased me all the way across the room, its claws on my collar and it wouldn’t let go. I wrestled and ran and ran and wrestled until Dad finally caught up with us and helped me get away.

It was a very close call and I was so scared. After all, I am still a puppy and that tray was huge. Bad tray!

One of the fun things about getting a new puppy is wondering how different (or similar) he’ll be from your previous pets — because when those similarities or differences start to manifest themselves, we’re most often confronted with fond memories of what it was like when our aging four-leggers were as young as Dakota is now.

Thus far:

• Like Larkin, Dakota can hold it forever but would easily win the prize for the world’s longest pee.
• Like Kisa, Dakota doesn’t bat an eye-lash when he gets a taste of hot, spicy food… I’m talking cuisine that would make half the average population approach with caution. Like Kisa, Dakota is sort of in that “hmm-umm” category, trying to figure out how to get another taste”.
• Like Larkin, Dakota just wants to be next to you and lick you to death.
• Like Kisa, Dakota can’t resist anything made of paper… including the mail and newspapers. His love of toilet paper is unique to him alone.
• Like Larkin, Dakota can’t resist the urge to jump on you when you come into the room (but we’re working on that).
• Like Kisa, Dakota can’t resist an opportunity to hump Larkin. Yeah, I know… Kisa’s a female. And your point is?
• Like Larkin, Dakota can’t resist putting his tongue in Kisa’s ear.
• Like Kisa, Dakota eats so fast he can’t possible taste his food.
• Like Larkin, Dakota likes napping with his back against the front door — especially when it’s really cold and windy. Leonbergers make great draft snakes.
• Like Kisa, Dakota is humanly vocal. Larkin simply barks, albeit rare. Kisa and Dakota converse. They both have a variety of sounds that are much like human conversations, complete with varying inflections and volume.

February 20th is Love Your Pet Day! Lucky for me, I have 295 pounds to love.

Life has been a little dull lately. Dad’s been commuting to Boston a lot lately, so he’s leaving the house before 0700 and not getting home until well after 1900. Mom only has to go to the office once a week, but her job has been a really crazy, so she’s on the phone or Skype almost all day.

With both of them so busy, I’ve had to find things to keep myself occupied during the day. I have lots of toys, but a puppy needs new, interesting objects to keep him entertained.

Today, I had a real treat. Mom forgot to put the toilet paper on the high shelf in the bathroom again. And lucky for me, it was a full roll so I was busy shredding for at least a couple of hours.

Look, Mom... textile arts!

Shredding toilet paper is very hard work.

Hah! I hid my squeaky soccer ball upstairs in Mom and Dad’s bedroom. I’m really good at hiding things. Mom knows its up there ’cause she saw me with it, but even she couldn’t find it.

And it doesn’t matter if Dakota sees this ’cause he’s not allowed to go upstairs yet — we’d never get a wink of sleep at night.