When Josh and I decided we wanted to get a dog, we hoped to find one with a little personality. Or a lot of personality. We just didn’t want a boring dog. Oxymoron, right? When we first brought Puppy Remy home and all he wanted to do was hide under the couch and sleep, we avoided talking about it. We still hoped that a little personality would come blossoming out. Although we did google “doggie depression” just out of curiosity. (We realize now that that search was perhaps a bit…paranoid.)

The good news is that once the anxiety of being ripped from the loving paws of his two brothers (we’re sorry, Cecil and Harry!), little Rem-rem seemed to come into his own quite a bit. If not take complete ownership of the apartment. Now he’s always doing things that make us laugh. Things like jumping onto the toilet seat to watch the water go down during a flush. He waits for just the right moment to steal clothing from the hamper (especially undergarments). He wakes up when I get up in the early morning, only to go right back to bed after ten minutes. (Likes to sleep in.) He growls at you when you choose to sit on the couch. I mean, you could be playing with him, hello. He howls whenever the ambulances go by and is basically terrified by trains and motorcycles. When you’re walking him and he gets really excited, he’ll run in circles around you (like the horses in Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken. Remember that movie, Petrella girls?!?!). He always cocks his head and looks at you when you talk to him, and tries so hard to understand what you’re saying. We think that’s pretty frustrating for him.

There’s more, and we thought we had discovered most of the fun aspects of him. Then today we decided to take him on a drive with us. I had brought an ice water with me. Since Remy was on my lap and tends to shed, I figured the water was tainted and let him have it.

About two minutes after his first long drink of ice water, his sides started heaving in a disturbing way, and then the ice water came right back up. I tried unsuccessfully to catch it in the cup, but it all landed on me. I felt quite brave and non germaphobic when I didn’t start crying and even laughed about it. Josh kindly offered to take Remy while I tried to mop up the mess with leftover drive thru napkins. So we learned that Remy doesn’t do well with cold liquids.

Warning sign unobserved. Our fun drive continued.

Then Remy started licking his lips. A lot. Which he never does. Josh was concerned. I was preoccupied with the whole freezing cold sensation dripping down my jeans to take the time to analyze what could be happening.

Then there was a gagging sound followed by the smell of partially digested dog food, and we discovered yet another new trait of Remy.

He gets carsick.