Just ten weeks old yesterday, Iggy is already conspiring against us. Or, well, against himself.

He’s determined to never again set foot outside.

This afternoon after Chris and I returned from an afternoon of Saturday Market and Powell’s perusal Iggy was incredibly high on crack hyper, running and sliding about, nipping at shoes and just generally highlighting that he was indeed full of excess energy, and what were we going to do about it, huh?

We, being the greenest best and brightest of puppy owner’s, anticipated this and had grand aspirations of taking him for a walk to a nearby park. The moment I mentioned the word “walk” you would have thought we threatened to put him on OJ Simpson’s lap feed him to the pony-sized woolly mammoth of a dog we saw walking its owner this afternoon.

The second his harness and color-coordinated leash (black, both) were attached, he instantly froze, was quiet, and then, after looking up at me as if he was crying “Sanctuary, sanctuary!” he trotted right over to his sleeping pillow and plopped himself down on it, in a ridiculous(ly hilarious) “Hell, no; I won’t go” position.

Minutes later, he was busted fake sleeping on Chris’ forearms, his face perpetually pressed against and upward, as if pleading with sedentary gods to grant him solace, to grant him a get out of walk free card.

The desperately anti-walk movement looked looked a bit like this:

And this:

Every walk until two days’ ago has been so unproductive it’s laughable. We carry him outside, he looks around, realizes he is on cement, and there are leaves! and other people! and quite possibly the apocalypse! on the horizon. So, he sits. And scoots. And generally does not walk, which would be infuriating if it wasn’t so incredibly adorable. So we laugh, and scoot ahead, and he scoots at the last minute to catch up, and then! then in a moment of sheer brilliance another (unleashed, but seemingly very trained) dog came trotting by with two women and Iggy was instantly interested in walking, in chasing, in playing. He follow the other dog a good two and a half blocks until suddenly and out of nowhere he remembered that he was indeed WALKING and he will have none of that, no sir, and he stopped again. And refused to move. Not for treats and not for promises of an inheritance of golden milk bones.

Clearly, we are in serious need of an exit strategy. As in, a way to get him out of the house. Right now he’s (fake) sleeping. If he starts (fake) snoring we are sending him straight to Hollywood, because, clearly, our puppy has a gift.