LOLCats on Salon.com

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Martha's Got Lungs

I crated the new girls together in a size 500 varikennel in the kitchen around 9:30 pm. Martha started hollering. She hasn't stopped yet. After half an hour I removed her from the communal crate, put her in one by herself, and covered it with a sheet. She continued to holler. Finally my nerves just couldn't take any more; I put her in the laundry room, with the light off hoping the darkness would encourage her to go to sleep, and closed the door. It's 12:30 am and she's still hollering. She's not lonesome, she's not hungry, she's not scared, she's mad. "Nobody confines ME, lady! Let me OUT of here!! " The other two have been sleeping soundly since shortly after I put Martha in the laundry room.

Martha was Daddy's Girl, and indulged. She's confident and very, very stubborn. Martha, you've met your match. I'll out-stubborn you if it takes all night.

Time Flies

I can't believe it's the end of July already. Summer's short enough as it is, why does it have to fly by so fast?! I already notice it's getting dark earlier in the evening and light later in the morning; makes me grateful for every minute of daylight, and loathe to waste a minute of it.

Sydney will be going to his new home the first week of August. And I may be placing Max with the mother of one of the parents of Sydney's family. (I'll miss the hell out of Max, I absolutely adore him, but he's so adoptable I can't justify keeping him myself, and I know he'd absolutely love living somewhere he could get all the lap time and all the cuddling he wants.) I just got a great application for Hambone, I'm hoping to do this home visit this weekend. They feed super-premium food, believe in crate training, intend to take him to obedience class, are advocates of positive training methods (and used words like "redirect" and "reward" on the app) - basically, everything I'm looking for in a home for a puppy.

It's been 5 weeks since Ginger broke her leg. We went for a re-check yesterday, Dr. B took the splint off and did a new x-ray. The bones are healing beautifully and Dr. B said "that's a lot straighter than I thought it would be!" (Gee, now you tell me! She cracked up.) She also said "if you can keep her quiet/confined for the next couple of weeks, I think she could go home without the splint." But I don't want to take any chances, and I know Ginger is a lot happier running around on her splint than she would be confined to her boudoir, so I had the vet put the splint back on. I can take it off myself in a couple of weeks. Ginger will have to be closely supervised (and confined when I can't supervise) for a week or so afterward, while putting weight on her un-splinted leg hardens the new bone, but that's OK.

Ginger loves me. I discovered she loooooooves to go for rides in the car, so I take her along whenever possible. She curls up between and just in back of the bucket seats, and allows me to pet her. She also gives my right elbow kisses when I'm not petting her. I took her to my mom's with me last week and she did pretty good, but when I had to run up to the corner store for something and left her there with Mom for the 10-minute round trip, mom said she didn't stop running back and forth looking for me until I walked back in the door. She's back to sleeping in bed, and with our morning cuddle sessions she gets less and less timid every day. I coo "come clooooooser, sugar, come cloooooser" at her and she inches forward playfully until she reaches my face, then she gives me lots of kisses before backing off a few feet. Then she'll settle down there and wait for me to pet her. A couple of days ago I was even able to roll her onto her side and tickle her tummy. (She loves tummy tickles, but usually prefers to stand up to get them.) She still is afraid to let me catch her so she's still dragging a piece of leash I can step on if necessary, but she's even getting better there, too - she'll come within a foot or two of me instead of running away from me, and most times she doesn't try to get away from my hands reaching for her. This morning, when I wanted to lift her down off the bed and told her "up" as I reached for her, she didn't try to get away from me but hunkered down and waited for me to pick her up. I talk to her, and she wriggles and dances and her tail wags wildly. We still have a long way to go before she's adoptable, but she's made huge progress in 4 months.

Chu Chu is the funniest little dog. The serious, plodding little fluffball of a couple of months ago has metamorphosed into a running, jumping, wagging, all that and a bag of chips little girl whose antics make me laugh. Even a month go, if she was out in the big yard and I called her, her gait was still careful and plodding. But that all changed when I made the decision to keep her and told her she was staying here. (Actually, she made the decision. I just gave in.) The dogs who sleep with me (Penny, Dudley, Sparky, Chooch, Ginger, Ruby, and sometimes Max) get access to the big yard first thing in the morning, before I bring them in and put the big dogs out there and close the gate. Yesterday morning when I called Chooch she came running and bouncing with abandon, such a confident, happy, normal little Shih Tzu. I got all choked up remembering what she was like when she first got here, how amazing her transformation has been. I'm so grateful she was able to survive and escape the horror of the puppymill where she was held captive for four years. I adore this little dog.

My summer term obedience class didn't get enough enrollees to make it worthwhile, so we cancelled it. After I'd sent my information in for the fall term I got a note from the Parks and Rec director asking if I would consider a night other than Monday, because she just couldn't make it work. I said sure, I'd be happy to do Wednesday or Thursday. It might allow folks who wanted to come to class but couldn't make Monday night for one reason or another to enroll. It'll also avoid the scheduling problem with elections. The building I teach in is a polling place, and they set the machines up the night before. Whenever there's an election of any kind I have to hold that week's class later in the week, and the schedule change wreaks havoc on class attendance, not only the off-week, but for the rest of the term. When I only have 7-8 dogs to begin with and half the class stops attending half way through the term, it makes some of the important practice exercises we do later in the term very difficult to do. Pass the dog. Practice the CGC test "friendly dog distraction" exercise. I work a lot harder and have to be much more creative when there are fewer students than when I have a full, or nearly-full, class.

I got the carpet up in half of the dining room, and the floor underneath is in much better shape than the floor in the kitchen was. I got another gallon of primer, and bought the paint for the living and dining room floors a couple of weeks ago. I love the color, and can't wait to see it on the floor. I got more wood filler - for the crack between the sheets of plywood that occurs at the kitchen threshhold - late last week and got the crack filled on Sunday. I need to sand it down and do a little touch up, then it'll be ready for priming and then painting. I've been getting the tack strips up little by little, and removing baseboards. (All the baseboards need to be repositioned almost an inch lower so they meet the floor. But it'll be a lot easier to paint the walls without them, and I'll be able to paint the baseboards outside on newspaper all at once, so I won't have to do any taping to protect the walls or floors before I paint them. All I'll have to do is nail the baseboards back on and touch up the tiny finishing nail holes with a q-tip dabbed in paint.)

After taking a couple of months "off" from knitting regularly, I'm back to knitting - and crocheting - about 6 different projects, working on one or two different ones as I sit in the evening and watch/listen to the baseball game. I'm knitting a feather-and-fan shawl in Wool-Ease that may end up being my mom's Christmas gift, and I'm crocheting a rectangular granny-square afghan using all the Wool-Ease I have left over from other projects. (This might end up being my sis and DBIL's Christmas present if the colors come together and aren't too wild and crazy. If it looks tacky, I'll keep it for myself. I don't care what it looks like, as long as it's warm!) I'm knitting a pair of pastel purple socks for my mom to go with her Red Hats outfits, and I'm working on 3 different pairs of socks for myself. One pattern is cabled (not difficult, but slower because of the cabling), one is an easy pattern, and I just started the third last night and am only still on the cuff. Once the cuff is long enough I'll see how the colors are working together; from what I see so far, a plain stockinette stitch may show off the yarn best. It's a very pretty hand-painted yarn with all different shades of blue with a little purple.

A few months back I got some undyed super-wash merino sock yarn that I want to try hand-painting myself. There's enough yarn in this hank for 4 pairs of socks, so I can do 4 different colorways. Last month, I bought a dozen different colors of Kool-Aid to use as dye. Before I do any of that, though, I want to make myself a yarn swift, so I don't have to do all the winding manually. I think I can make a pretty satisfactory one with stuff I've already got here, I've just got to get motivated to do it. But if I'm going to use any of this yarn to make Christmas presents, I'd better get my tush in gear. Which takes me back to where I started this post - the summer is just flying by!

Busy, Busy

I've been neglectful, again. In my defense, I've been busy.

Ginger's broken leg is healing, and she's getting a little more socialized, but she is still leery about being picked up. She comes close, almost close enough to touch, and her tail wags wildly while she happy-dances, but she's still not sure it's OK for me to pick her up. Even with her cast she's so fast I can't catch her, so she's back to dragging a leash again. But she does come close enough so I can step on her leash, and she knows that's what I'm going to do so she's deliberately putting herself close enough to catch. She doesn't mind sitting on my lap so much any more, and she's even fallen asleep there a couple of times. Now that she's got a regular splint on and she can get around more easily - and there's less chance she'll get stuck on something - I've been giving her a little more house time. She loves the other dogs, and I was amused to see she's got a special affection for Ruby the Cavalier. She loves Ruby as much as she loves Penny, and she loves to be able to curl up with one or the other, so as long as I can supervise I let her be free in the living/dining rooms.

Mrs. Parker went to her new home yesterday. I'd gotten half a dozen applications for her, but none of them were a good match. But this home has turned out to be perfect for her, and she's just what they were looking for, so everyone's happy. She was a bit of an odd-dog-out here, she tolerated the other dogs but preferred not to interact with them. She'll be very happy to be an only dog. And she could be an annoying little noodge, when she wanted something she'd bark-bark-pause, bark-bark-pause. Persistently. She's one of those dogs I'm happy to see go, both for her and for me. And the timing is serendipitous, I got a call this morning from the woman I got Sparky from, someone dumped a puppy in her yard last night and she wanted to know if I have room for him. I didn't have room yesterday, but I do today! She's going to see if perhaps he's just lost, but she's pretty sure he was dumped so he'll probably be coming in a day or two. She thinks he's about 3 months old, he weighs 6 pounds; hopefully he's cute and will place fast.

I got the carpet up on the stair between the kitchen and the front hallway. As I do every time I pull up more carpeting, I found sloppy work below. It's a cement step, it used to be outside. It's got chips in it, some of them very large, and it doesn't go all the way across the hallway. They put a couple of wood blocks next to it, to extend the width. I can't paint it the way it is, I can't remove the blocks without having to patch in a couple pieces of drywall. I decided the best thing to do is make a plywood cover for the step - one piece the depth of the step and placed on top of it, a short riser from the front to the hallway floor, and a short riser from the back to the kitchen floor. Didn't have a clue how I was going to get a sheet of plywood home, though. I stopped at the lumber yard this morning on my way back from the s/n clinic (Brie and, finally, Ruby, plus I transported a mini-Dachsie from this area) and they had a 2' X 4' piece of 1/2" plywood. It's exactly what I needed, and it fit easily in the car. I forgot to get nails, but maybe it's better to use screws anyway.

When I go back to get the dogs this afternoon, I'm going down a little early so I can stop at Costco and get food, and then at Home Depot to pick up another gallon of sealer/primer and a gallon of the Behr floor paint I picked out for the living/dining room. I've re-thought the color I want to use on two of the dining room walls, and on the trim for the other 2 walls and the living room wall. I'd picked a pale blue-green for two of the dining room walls and the trim in the living room, and I'd picked a pale green-blue for the bedroom walls. I picked a color that falls right between the two, and I'm going to use that color on the bedroom walls, two of the dining room walls, and for the trim on the other living and dining room walls. One gallon ought to be enough for both the BR and DR walls, so it'll save me the cost of a pint of paint for the two DR walls if I'd gone with the original color. That blue works very well with the dark teal floor paint I like, so that's what I'm going to use in the LR/DR instead of the "Cedar Plank" brown.

I've moved The Chooch's Petfinder listing to the Happy Tails (adopted) page. I got a few apps for her, nothing quite right, and she decided she wants to stay here. She loves Dudley, she loves Penny, she adores Sparky, she thinks the cats are great to snuggle up and sleep with, and the other day I caught her snuggled up to Lumi's rump, with her head resting on his hip. She doesn't want to go anywhere else, she likes it just fine right here thank you very much! Who am I to argue with such a determined little missy?

The cats emptied the dry food bowl this morning, and I don't have anything to fill it up with until I get back later. By that time, they'd have gotten into everything they could possibly get into, looking for food, so I put out 8 6-oz. cans a few minutes ago, and now I've got sated, sleepy cats who'll last until I get home with more dry food in 5 hours. Sleeping cats, sleeping dogs, and I'm off for an hour nap myself.

At Last, a Break in the Weather

Last week was just plain nasty. Very hot, very humid, and lots and lots of thunderstorms and just plain rain. I was uncomfortable, the cats and dogs were uncomfortable, everyone I met was uncomfortable. It was a little cooler yesterday, but it was still quite warm (83). Today the humidity has gone and it's dry and breezy, and supposed to reach a high of 80. The week coming up is supposed to be sunny, dry, and in the mid 70's, so I should be able to get a lot of work done outside during the day, and a lot of work done inside after dark. It's been too humid for paint to dry quickly and thoroughly, so I've gotten nothing done this past week as far as that goes. At least I have more energy now that it's cooler.

The change in the weather has had a profound effect on the animals, too. Everyone's raring to go. Sparky and Dudley have been playing tag and wrestling for over an hour straight so far, and show no signs of slowing down. They are awfully cute together, and it's clear they really love each other. Of course, ChuChu loves Sparky, too. A little too much. But he doesn't seem to mind.

I've got 3/4 of a gallon of paint leftover from the bathroom. I think I'm going to use that in the L-shaped hallway that goes from the kitchen to the family room, past the front door. I'll have to check that color, and the hallway tile, against the color I've picked for the living room trim, but I'm pretty sure it'll work. I'll have plenty of trim paint left over from the living room, and I can use it in the hallway.

I'm taking Sydney and Ginger to be speutered tomorrow. I'll make a quick side trip to Costco for food when I go back to pick them up. Then I've got to get home and get them settled in pretty quickly, so I can leave to be at my Mom's by 6:30. There's a come one, come all choir up there that does a gospel concert every summer to benefit Habitat for Humanity. Mom's participated for years now, and last year she finally talked me into going up for the concert. I really enjoyed it, and there was lots of opportunity to sing along. Afterward, the director mentioned that I'd be welcome to join them this summer. I haven't sung in a choir in 20 years, so both my voice and my sight-reading skills are pretty rusty, but that should come back fairly quickly once I'm working it again. I'll have to find out what the rehearsal schedule is, and whether or not it would conflict with my summer-term Monday night class before I can commit, but I hope I can participate. (My summer class might not get enough enrollments, anyway.)

Last week, the bank along the creek that I pass on the way to the spay/neuter clinic was covered with flowers. I took these pics a week ago Thursday, on the dismal rainy day:





I was past there yesterday, and the flowers are all gone now. Such a brief display, but such a pretty one!

Ginger continues to progress, a teeny bit more every day. Right now she's sitting about 6 feet from me, and every time I look at her she grins and her tail wags like crazy. Her tail wags when I talk to her. Her tail wags when I look at her. She readily takes treats from my fingers now, and actively solicits more. She still doesn't want me to "catch" her, or hold her, but she''ll even tolerate that when she's in a pickle, like when she's stuck on top of the woodpile and needs help getting down. She and Ruby climb the wood pile on the patio and nap on top of it, where they're not bothered by crazy puppies. Ruby can get down by herself, but Ginger can't. She barks at me to come get her, and her tail wags like crazy even though she hunkers down like she doesn't want me to pick her up, but she doesn't move away from my hands, either, and allows me to lift her up and carry her inside. She's a funny little thing. She sure loves Penny, whenever she can she snuggles up to her big, solid, non-threatening friend. I want to start some clicker training with her, see if that helps her come around more quickly.

I've got jelly jars in the dishwasher, and cherries draining in the collander. I need to make a quick run to the store, but I'm going to make cherry jam when I get home. I need to get the rest of the meatballs and sauce bagged into individual servings and into the freezer. I got a ham last week that I need to cook tonight; tomorrow I'll grind up a lot of what's left and take some to Mom tomorrow for sandwiches. I've had a craving for scalloped potatoes and ham. I don't know if I'll get around to making it with this ham, but if I've got time and it's cool enough to use the oven in the next couple of days, I might give it a shot. I need to finish getting things into the garden, too, or I'll still have all unripened veggies when the first frost hits!

Rainy Days and Thursdays

It's a very dismal, wet, foggy day here. I was up very early this morning because I had to take a group of dogs to the spay/neuter clinic, and the fog was so bad I could barely see my pole barn from the house. Despite the gloom, the ride down to the interstate was beautiful; everything is so green, heavy with drizzle, and softened by the fog. There's one spot that's always pretty, but this morning it was absolutely gorgeous - wild blue-purple flowers carpeting the south bank of a little creek, cupped in a hollow of hardwood trees in full leaf. I'm going to try to remember to take my camera with me on the return trip, and take a few pics along the way.

I saw a dog standing at the end of a driveway at the edge of the road, and though I was already running late I couldn't just leave him there to get hit, so I turned around and went back. I chased him up the driveway and he ran behind a tree, when I followed him I saw he'd gotten back into his yard. I found the spot I think he got out and did what I could to block it at least temporarily, then I left a note on the door saying I'd found the dog in the road and had put him back in the yard, but they needed to fix that spot! I didn't see him on my way back, so I hope he was still in his yard. I'll check again on the return trip this afternoon.

I took Sparky and ChuChu along for the ride, I like to have company coming home after dropping dogs (and cats) off at the clinic. (On the way down, I had a pile of three beagle mix puppies snuggled in between the bucket seats, next to my hip and under my elbow. Sweet, snuggly babies.) As we got about 5 miles from home, a line of thunderstorms caught up with us. ChuChu got very agitated, and tried desperately to get into my lap, or under my feet. I had a hard time holding her to prevent her from getting there. Poor thing, I'll bet she went through lots of thunderstorms unsheltered. It wasn't until we were almost to the house that she started to calm down a little, perhaps realizing that the car was protecting her.

I'm going to be a sort of sattelite scheduler for the s/n clinic. When I book appointments in advance, they're going to tell me how many other slots are open, and for what (cat or dog, male or female, large or small). Then they'll give my number to anyone from this area who calls and is interested in transport, have me schedule the appointments for the day I'm going down, and get the consent paperwork ready. Then I can have folks drop their pets off here and transport them down and back with my own, for $10 per dog, or per carrier. That'll at least pay for my gas, and the bagel and coffee I like to get at New York Bagel for the morning drive home. All I have to do is call them a couple of days in advance and tell them what I've already booked, and they'll schedule any other open slots themselves.

I stopped yesterday and picked up a few plants for my garden that I didn't have seeds for - regular and pickling cukes, habanero peppers, another heirloom tomato, regular watermelon (instead of the Sugar Babies I grew last year), and a Big Bertha bell pepper. If we get a break in the rain, I'm going to do a little planting this afternoon. It would be the perfect day to transplant. I also got a tall, double shepherd's hook plant hangar last week, for two more hanging tomatoes; I hope it's easier to get into damp ground than it was trying to get it into dry ground. I may have to use a sledgehammer anyway, to put it in the spot I prefer it to be.

After finishing the half bath (except for a little touch up), I've reconsidered using the Sensations paint on both walls and trim. I think I'm going to use Ace's regular semi-gloss for the trim, I can get it tinted to the colors I want and I think it'll cover the white semi-gloss that's already there in one coat. (The Sensations satin finish needs 2 coats.) I like the look of the semi-gloss better, and it's less expensive; not by much, but it'll save a couple of bucks and hours of re-coating.

I got one corner of the family room cleared, and I'm going to get a patch of the carpet and pad pulled up by bedtime, so I can put it out with my trash tonight. I've been kind of stuck, not knowing what order to do things in so it'll flow the smoothest, but I think it makes most sense to get the carpet out of the family room first even if I don't paint the floor in there until later. The concrete will clean easily enough until it's painted. And once I've got some room in there I can move stuff out of the living room so it'll be easier to get the walls in there painted. I haven't checked yet, but I suspect I'm going to have to pull the base molding off the walls before I paint them. If the folks who lived here before put the carpet down and then the baseboards, there'll be a gap between the baseboards and the floor so I'll have to pull the baseboards and reposition them after I paint the walls so they're flush with the floor. It'll help to have somewhere to move enough furniture (and crates) out of the living room so that I can easily access a whole wall, and then work one wall at a time. When the walls are done, I'll pull the carpet, replace the baseboards, and paint the trim. Then finish by painting the floor.

I did some stocking-up grocery shopping yesterday. Ouch. You know, when you look at the price on a single item you think "yeah, well, it's gone up in price, but 20-30-40 cents really isn't that much." But the cumulative total is shocking. I gasped when I heard it. And this was at Sav-A-Lot, where the prices are lower, sometimes lots lower, than other grocery stores. I got a 2.5 pound package of ground chuck, I'll make a big pot of meatballs later today or tomorrow, divide it into individual servings, and freeze. (Speaking of which, I need to clean out the refrigerator and freezer later, so that'll go into the trash that'll be picked up tomorrow too, and won't sit for days in the sun in the trash cart.) I'll take a couple bags of meatballs and sauce to Mom, too. I got a picnic shoulder ham, after a dinner of ham and slicing up enough for sandwiches, I'll grind and freeze the rest to make ham salad with. (And take some to Mom.) I'm going to start making my own bread again, too; even if it doesn't save much off the grocery bill, at least it won't be stale in a day or two.

This rain makes me want to crawl back in bed so bad. Guess I'd better get up and get working before I give in and do just that.

Slowly but surely

I'm getting the painting done slowly but surely. I've got the half bath done except for the baseboards, a bit more of the window trim, and a couple little touch-ups. It's so pretty, I just love it.






So much nicer than the flat grey-beige with white trim that was in there before. When I get the floor cleaned up, and touch up one spot where the floor paint peeled off the wood filler below it, I'll try to get a pic of the whole thing - walls, trim, and floor - all together.

I picked a paint color for the living room walls, and painted a test patch to see how it would look. It's a little lighter than I thought it would be, but part of that might just be the spot I painted. It doesn't get a lot of light, either natural or artificial, in that spot. I thought about taking it back to the store and having them add the tint necessary to get the next darker color on the paint chip, and I still might do that. Or I might just go with it as it is - I don't want to go too dark or it'll make the rooms smaller. I'm going to use the same paint on two walls of the dining room, and swap trim and wall colors on the other two dining room walls. You can't really tell the color from the following pic, but it's a pale pinky-peach. I've picked a pale minty-green for the trim/2 dining room walls, and I think I'm going to go with a medium brown with just a hint of red called Cedar Plank for the floors.



Test patch in the living room
I picked up some 10-gallon storage tubs for the tomatoes I'm going to grow outside the garden. I just need to pick up potting soil for them, and I'll be ready to put tomato plants out. We're still getting frost warnings - there's one issued for tonight - so I haven't put anything out yet. Actually, I haven't even tilled the garden yet. I'll be a week or so late getting everything in. So what else is new?

The grass got horridly long because of all the rain we had earlier in the month. I can't get my lawnmower started by myself, I'm just not strong enough to pull the cord hard enough to get it started. (Even my stronger sis had a hard time getting it started last year.) So, as much as I hate to spend the money, I put up an ad on the bulletin board at the little grocery store in the village for yard help. I got a call from a very nice young man who came this morning. It seems my mower deteriorated over the winter, he worked with it and could get it started, but couldn't keep it going. So he went and borrowed his dad's mower, and he's out there now cutting my grass. We agreed on $10 an hour and this first cut's going to run me $40 because the grass is knee-high already, but after this it should only run me $20 each time he comes. He's a good kid, a hard worker, he's doing a better job than I would, and he's saving me days of aches and pains from doing it myself, so I think it's going to be worth it to have him come do this, and perhaps some other yard work, for me.

I lost a rescue pup to parvo this week. Poor little guy was pulled from a shelter last Thursday, got transported on Saturday and Sunday, got sick Monday morning, and died on Tuesday. Such a heartbreaker. And what a truly awful disease. I've been so lucky in my rescue efforts, I've never had to deal with parvo before. And I hope to doG I never have to deal with it again. Not only is it heartbreaking to watch a pup keep getting sicker, it's an awful lot of work. In just 32 hours I went through a jumbo roll of paper towels cleaning up gelatinous vomit and bloody stools, and filled an empty 40-pound dog food bag with paper towels and newspapers. And after he passed, I used so much bleach scouring my bathroom, bowls, crate, and anything else he touched that even 48 hours later I can still smell it. I probably overdid it a little, but I just don't want to take a chance that I missed something. I've got the already-bleached crate and the bowls out baking in the sun (ultraviolet light kills the parvovirus) just for good measure. I think I'm going to pry off the shoe molding on at least a couple of the bathroom walls, so I can bleach underneath/behind it. None of the diarrhea was anywhere near the walls but some of the vomit was, and though it's likely the virus was shed only in the feces, I don't want to take any chances. And if I get in any unvaccinated puppies in the next 6 months, they're going to be quarantined somewhere other than my bathroom. I was very careful not to track anything out of the bathroom - I even stepped out of my shoes (Crocs) as I left there and stepped from my shoes to the floor outside the bathroom so as not to bring anything out. Afterward, I bleached the shoes, too.

I've had the beagle/fox hound pups up on petfinder a little over a week without any interest and I was starting to worry that I might have them longer than I thought I would, but I got a couple of inquiries today (an application request for Scarlet, an inquiry on Chance), and a request for an application for Ernie the Shih Tzu. So, we'll see what the apps look like. These pups are very sweet, and have come around beautifully. They're not shy any more, they're attention hogs now. Sydney is a big-time cuddler, he'd rather be on my lap than anywhere else. (Don't tell anyone, but Syd's my favorite of the 4.) Scarlet's sweet but she's one tough little cookie, doesn't take any guff from anyone, period. If another dog even dares look at the toy she's playing with or the rawhide chip she's working on, she really gives them what-for. I've had to correct her for it more than once. A little finger-tap on the nose with "oh no, missy, that's not acceptable here!"

Rosie the Borg dog is cute, but she's a little stinker. Stubborn and sneaky. She got out into the yard with the big dogs today and I couldn't get her back in. I warned her if she messed with Nellie she was going to get herself a good thrashing. But it's been a couple of hours and she hasn't gotten herself beat up yet, and it's been quieter on the patio without her there, so if she and Nellie continue to be congenial I think I'll let her out into the big yard more often. She can get a lot more exercise out there, and that can only result in her being quieter and easier to get along with inside.

Ginger the Papillon is gradually coming around. Last night she took some spaghetti from my fingers, and came back looking for more. Even put her front feet up on my leg, asking for more. She still doesn't want me to touch her when I'm upright, but enjoys having her ears rubbed and her tummy tickled when she's on the bed and I'm lying down. I'm hoping that getting spayed will help, too; she's scheduled for June 16, along with Syd and Ruby the Cavalier. Scarlet, Holly, and Chance are all going in next Thursday. She absolutely loves Penny - who doesn't? - and can almost always be found curled up with her.

I got a great update on Rosie the Cavalier. She's settling in very well, and is bonding with her boy. She even sleeps in bed with him now. I also got a picture update on Seal/Toby this week. Oh my goodness, he's huge, and he's only 6 months old. He's going to be one very big adult!


I need to do a follow-up for both Parchesi and Livvy, see how they're doing. I think I'll go do that now.

Procrastinator Nonpareil

That's me. There's no more accomplished procrastinator in the world than I. I should be working, but I'm sitting. Waiting to hear that a little 4-month old beagle/poodle pup got pulled from a shelter this afternoon (before he's euthed tomorrow morning) and will be arriving here on Sunday. They also had a 4-month old Mountain Cur puppy. She, and a big Lab/Deerhound mix, are the only ones slated for the gas chamber tomorrow that haven't been spoken for as of about an hour ago. As much as I'd love to help, I'd have a heck of a time finding an appropriate home for her and I'm afraid that, even at 4 months of age, she'd be too prey-driven to live safely with cats. I hope someone else can take her.

I seem to have "will take beagle mixes!" stamped on my forehead. That's OK - they're cute, sweet, are usually good family dogs, and are pretty easy to place. The beagle/fox terrier pups - box terriers? feagles? foggles? - are doing very well. Scarlet and Sydney are both very social, snuggly little stinkers, and both enjoy just crashing on my lap. When I reach out for them, they lie down and roll onto their sides or backs to get belly tickles. Chance and Holly are still a little shy, but coming around. They're all over me until I reach out for them, then they move back out of reach. But they're easier to "catch" than they were a couple of days ago, so I think they'll be fine in another week or so. I listed them on Petfinder on Tuesday afternoon, and haven't had a single inquiry. It could be because of the upcoming holiday weekend, people thinking they'll be able to take a puppy right away and not wanting to do it until after the long weekend. Or it could be because their descriptions say the pups came from a puppymill, with the word 'puppymill' being a live link to Prisoners of Greed.

I got a decent application for Nellie today. I don't know if she's the right dog for them, but they're worth checking out. It might be a very good situation for her, and it sure would be nice to get her out of here and into a permanent home.

When I woke up this morning, Ivy was curled up against my thigh. I just reached down and started rubbing her head - she didn't flinch, didn't try to get away, just stayed relaxed and enjoyed her head rub. Either she wasn't totally awake and didn't realize that it was me touching her, or she was too relaxed and just didn't care. In any case, I enjoyed being able to pet her. Snickers has almost completely come around. I can even reach out and touch him now when he's on the table and I'm standing. He sleeps next to my feet, and comes for cuddles every morning. I'll be lying on my back petting cats and little dogs when I'll feel him getting on top of my shins, and then up my body to my stomach, where he settles down and waits for me to notice him through the crowd and reach through to pet him. He's a very heavy guy, at least 16 pounds. It hurts when he walks on me!

Poor Chu-Chu. She was getting really shaggy, so I gave her a haircut last night. I had given some thought to letting her coat grow out, I think she'd be stunning in a "show" coat, but I figured she'd be more comfortable, not to mention it would be easier to keep her clean, if I just gave her a summer shave-down. I didn't realize that her head's so tiny in comparison to her body, she looks a bit like a cartoon alien now. I'll have to get a pic, she's pretty funny looking. Oh well, she'll be cooler for the next couple of months, and now I know not to shave her head completely next time, but to leave a little beard and topknot to balance her out!

After my last class of the term on Monday night, I stopped at Lowe's on the way home and got the paint for the floor in the family room. "Grey Blue Sky" - a light bluish grey. I've decided I'll get 3 quarts of Glidden's bright floor paint - one red, one yellow, one blue - and mix some of those together to get orange, green, and purple, and splatter those on the grey floor. Anything that's left over from those bright colors can be added to a quart of white to make medium-bright or pastel colors, and I'll use that to paint the bookcases/shelves I want to put in there. I'm going to start removing some of the carpet in there tonight; not all of it, just enough to finish filling my trash cart. I don't want to wait to start removing carpet because I don't want to waste the trash cart space now and then have to wait 2-3 weeks to get rid of all the carpet later.

I'm going up to my mom's in the morning. There's a huge community garage sale where she lives, tomorrow and Saturday. I'm looking for a futon and a rocker/recliner, but I'll settle for any seating that's a) in better shape than what I've got now (that's not going to be hard to find), b) comfortable, c) something I can fit in my car to either bring home or get to my mom's to put in her garage until my sis (with a van) or my brother (with a small SUV) can get it here for me, and d) cheap. The old leather sofa I have now was destined for the curb when I took it from an acquaintance 3 years ago, and it's in a lot worse shape now than it was then. Like the carpet, it's got to go! My rocker/recliner is still in relatively good shape, but the seat cushion's not cushion-y any more. I can feel the wood slats when I sit in it, and have had to put the cushion from an old couch on the seat part. I'll hang onto it even if I find a replacement, and just move it out to the family room. I'd also love to find a small computer desk on wheels. The desk I'm using is a good sturdy office desk, but it's awfully darn heavy. Too heavy for me to move easily, even if I empty it out and clear it off. I need something that rolls. I'd move this desk out to the pole barn, and either sell or chop up the old but not antique wooden desk I've got out there. I'd like to find a smaller, lighter dining room table and chairs, too. The table I've got is OK, but it's heavy. The chairs match each other but not the table, and they're heavy too. I'd really love to have one of those old tubular-leg, formica-topped kitchen tables from the 50's, and chairs to match. Again, something lighter weight that I could move easily myself. I'm also sort of looking for an entertainment center cabinet. Nothing big, just something that will hold my 21" TV, the cable box, and my VCR all in one convenient place.

There's a devastating predator in my yard. Flint, who likes to spend his days out on the patio with the little dogs, has recently taken to dashing out to the big yard when I open the gate in the evening to bring the big dogs in. He wants to prowl. He never leaves the yard or I wouldn't let him stay out there after dark, he just stays in the yard until I let dogs out at bedtime, then he comes in with them. Almost every morning, I have to take a dead mouse away from Sparky. Flint's catching and killing them and bringing them onto the patio for me, and Sparky finds them in the morning and runs off with them. I have to chase him around the yard ordering him to "drop it, DROP IT!!" then pick the mouse up and dispose of it when he complies. It's gotten so I don't even open the door in the morning without sticking a paper towel in my pocket so I'll have it in case I need it as a shroud for one of Flint's victims. If I sound cold-blooded about Flint dispatching mice to the great cheese wedge in the sky, I am. Since Flint's been on the job, I haven't seen a single mouse in my garage. Organic mouse trap, indeed.

OK, now I really am going to get up and work on the kitchen floor some more. Yes, I know I said I hoped to have it done by tonight. But I also told you I'm very good at procrastinating. *grin* It's coming along, just slower than I'd planned. I'm hoping the flooring under the carpet in the living room, dining room, and bedroom is in better shape than the stuff in the kitchen. I'm on my third pint of wood filler, and not done filling cracks and evening off the height differences between all the different pieces. I 've been putting off pulling up the carpet from the stair between the kitchen and the hallway, I'm afraid of what I'll find underneath. But I guess I'll bite the bullet and just do it. Might as well get that stair done at the same time I paint the floor in the kitchen in that area. Here we go......

Busy Week

I should be working on the house, and did do a little earlier, but I ran out of gas pretty early. Thursday was a very long, very busy day for me, and yesterday was just as long and busy. Ah'm tarred. Ah well, I'll have a little nap in a bit, and do some more work in the kitchen later. I'll prime some smaller areas in the kitchen - areas I can easily block off overnight - before bed tonight, and paint those same areas before bed tomorrow. That'll leave just the open area in the center, and if I play my cards right I'll be able to get that primed Tuesday night before bed, painted Wednesday night before bed, and the whole kitchen second-coated Thursday night before bed, and then the kitchen floor will be done.

Beau, Bailey, and Max were neutered on Thursday, and Beau and Bailey went to join Roux in their new home on Thursday night. Their new mom couldn't remember 'Roux' (Roo), so she's been calling him 'Boo'. So now she has Boo, Beau, and Bailey. I did a home visit for Rose the Cavalier on Thursday afternoon, and both Rose and I liked the family. She's going to be spayed Monday, and her new mom will pick her up at the clinic and take her home from there. She'll have a 2-year old Boxer mix sister, and a pair of gentle, well-behaved children to dote on her. It's a lovely home in a lovely neighborhood, with people who are experienced in dealing with shy/timid dogs. I think she'll do very well there. Parchesi the boggle puppy and Ernie the Shih Tzu are also going to the s/n clinic on Monday, and Parchesi will be going to her new home the end of the week.

Yesterday I went up to my mom's early in the afternoon, to escort her to a doctor's appointment. From there we went to the Ace Hardware store nearby, to look at and collect some paint color strips. Ace has a paint called Sensations that has Scotchguard in it. Even marks like crayon wash off with just soapy water. I think it'll be much easier to keep clean than most flat paints, so that's what I'm going to use on all the walls and trim. I spent several hours over the past week playing with color combinations of wall, trim, and floor paint. (I've used Valspar porch and floor paint in the half bath and kitchen, but I think I'm going to be using Behr floor paint in the rest of the house. The Behr paint just seems a little more colorful, and I like the color choices, too.) I think I've chosen the colors for the half bath - the floor is a color called Chinaberry, a kind of medium dusty rose. (Remember Teaberry gum? It's that color!) I've picked a pastel greenish-teal for the walls and a medium tone of the same color for the trim. (Mom says "I don't know about using a different color on the trim..... won't it look funny? Do people do that?" Yes, mom, they do, and no, it doesn't look funny!)

I'm still not 100% set on the colors for the rest of the house, but as of now I'm looking at a wine color for the floor in the bedroom, a pale robin's egg blue for the walls, and trim that's a dusty pink just a shade lighter than the half-bath floor. The half bath is accessed through the bedroom, and the bedroom trim (and the bedroom side of the pocket door to the half bath) being close to the same color as the bathroom floor should help tie the two rooms together and make the whole space seem a little larger. For the living room/dining room I'm looking at a medium-pastel peach for the walls. It's a nice bright color without being garish, and should help warm/illuminate the living room, which only has one large window and has a tendency to be a little dark. I'm playing around with trim and floor colors, but I'm looking at a floor in a medium sea-green (like the crayon, but darker), or a medium or darker teal, and a trim in a medium-pastel shade of the same color. I'm going to do all the walls in the living room and the north and south walls of the dining room the same color, but I'm going to do the east and west walls of the dining room and their trim in reverse of the way they are in the living room and the north and south walls. The peach walls (and trim) in the dining room will blend harmoniously into the darker peach floor in the kitchen.

I'm still not sure what I want to do about the family room, either. It's a very dark room, the only natural light comes from the sliding door which opens onto the covered patio. It faces south which would ordinarily provide quite a bit of light, but there's a big pine on the east side of the patio that blocks the light in the morning, and the house blocks it from the west in the afternoon. It's a cold room, too, except when I'm using the wood stove, because there is no HVAC ductwork to that room. I'd love to use a nice, bright peachy-yellow on the walls, something that'll both light and warm the room. Whatever I use in there will also go on the walls in the hallway leading to it, and has to harmonize with the ceramic tile on the floor in the hallway; it's got some peach and bluish-grey tones in it. I want something on the family room floor that's not going to make every single little muddy footprint clearly visible so I don't have to mop it every time dogs come in, but I don't want to use anything really dark in there, either. Behr makes some really bright floor paint colors - orange, sunshine yellow, primary blue, grass green, primary red. I'm thinking about maybe doing the family room floor a medium-light bluish-grey, and getting pints of some of the bright colors and using them to "splatter" or drizzle over the grey. It would add color without being overwhelming, and I think it'll also make doggy footprints less noticeable. I've got a couple of wood shelves/bookcases I'd like to put in there; they need to be sanded down and painted first, and I could use the leftover bright floor paint to do the shelves with. That would give me more bright, but not overwhelming, color in there.

Anyway, after checking out paint we went back to Mom's. I got the ham in the oven, then gave Daisy a bath, combed her out, and clipped her nails. While she was air-drying, I got the asparagus, carrots, rice mixture, and baby portobello mushrooms ready to start cooking when it was time. Then I gave Daisy a haircut. I finished her just in time to start cooking the rest of the stuff for dinner. We had a Pepperidge Farm frozen lemon cake for dessert. I didn't get home until about 10. My brother called while I was there, he's going up tomorrow to take her out to lunch and she wants me to come too, but unless I wake up early tomorrow bursting with energy - and I doubt that'll happen - I think I'll skip it. I've got too much I want to get done here, and a busy day on Monday.

Blizz is OK, she only had two small wounds that have healed without needing any more attention than initial cleaning with hydrogen peroxide. I kept her and Ten separated through Monday, but then I let him go out in the yard with her. I stood inside and watched them through the window for a while, and since everything was copacetic I went about doing what I had to do and kept checking on them every15 minutes or so. At one point I looked out and they were lying on the grass a few feet apart, just hanging out and napping on and off. I know that Blizzard would not go and lie down by Ten, he has to have been the one to go lie down by her. They've been fine together since. Actually, it's been unusually peaceful out there since Lumi hasn't been out in the yard with the other big dogs.

Lumi is healing well. It's not pretty, but he's healing. I've kept him and Ten separated for the last two weeks. I let Lumi and Blizzard out together for a few minutes first thing in the morning along with Tansy, Penny, Dudley, Sparky, and usually Chu-Chu and Ginger (the Papillon, fka Pittypat). I leave the gate from the patio to the yard open, anyone who wants to go out into the yard can go, then I close the gate behind them. Then I let Lumi, Penny, Dudley, Sparky and Chooch back into the patio as they come back to the gate, and then bring them all inside. Then I put Ten, Nellie, and Spot out in the big yard, then the rest of the little dogs out in the patio. Once everyone was out this morning and the yard was "locked", I let Lumi back out onto the patio with the little dogs. (I have a panel from a big wire crate attached to the bottom half of the patio gate. It extends past the gate on the latch side, and I use a snap bolt to fasten the extended end to the fence on the other side of the gate post, once the gate is closed. Not only does this prevent small dogs from wriggling through the gap there and into the big yard, it prevents the dogs in the big yard from getting the gate open and getting into the patio to rearrange the furniture, up-end tables, chew on the hose, etc. Except it doesn't keep Nellie out, she just climbs the gate and jumps into the patio. Little stinker.) Lumi and Ten greeted each other through the fence. They each seemed happy to see the other, there was no tension in their postures, and both tails were doing relaxed, scooping, happy wags, instead of sharp, on-alert waving.

It looks like this is going to be easier to manage than I thought it was going to be. The last time I had to keep dogs separated - Eiger had to be kept away from both Blizzard and Lumi - an instant attack was certain. But with Ten and Lumi, if I slip up they wind up in the same space together accidentally, I think the risk of an instant conflict is probably pretty low. I think they'll probably be able to be together for a few hours out in the yard again, too, at least occasionally if not on a regular basis. I'll just have to make sure they come into the house separately, Lumi first and crated before I let Ten in.

Ten's been his usual sweet self, and he's been extra compliant and well-behaved too. I'm less stressed about him than I was a week ago, and much more hopeful that his recent behavior is due to transitioning from adolescence into adulthood, and that I can manage it and work through it with him. I'll have to be ultra-vigilant and consistent, and he's going to have to prove he's worthy before I'll trust him again, so it's going to take time and work. But I'm feeling much more optomistic about the whole situation.

My brakes are a little funky. There's either air in the brake line, or the master cylinder's going. I hope it's just air, the master cylinder was replaced 2.5 years ago and really shouldn't need to be replaced again. (It's not under warranty any more.) If it's the master cylinder, there goes the check - which should arrive this coming week - for this term's Monday night obedience class. I had other plans for that money. *sigh*

Difficult Decisions

I think I have to euthanize Ten.

A month ago he went after an 18-pound male cocker that got snotty with him. He got hold of the little guy and shook him and would not let go. I don't know how the cocker came out of that encounter alive, but he did. Friday night he went after Lumi. They've tussled in the past but it's never been serious - nobody's ever gotten hurt worse than a tooth scrape or bloody lip - and they've either been easy to separate or they've stopped on their own after a minute or so. And then they've been fine together again. But Friday night, as they were coming in from their bedtime 'out', they got into it and this time it was serious. I'm really not quite sure what set it off, whether Lumi made a warning face at Ten or whether he might have even gotten into his "come another inch closer and I'll beat the crap out of you" stance and Ten was just fed up, or what. Whatever it was, Ten attacked him and this time it turned into an all-out fight for dominance. I couldn't separate them, after trying for a couple of minutes with no success (and having pulled muscles in my back trying) I had to step out and let them fight until they started to tire. Only then was I able to get a good grip on Ten's collar to twist it and cut off his air, and get my back up against a wall where I was able to use my foot/leg to keep Lumi from coming back at Ten once Ten let go. Lumi got beat up pretty good, it wasn't just spit and toothscrapes, there was torn skin on his flank from where Ten grabbed him and shook, and a pretty good gash on his thigh.

Ten's been on NILIF ever since. I moved his crate out of my bedroom and out to the family room. I've kept him and Lumi away from each other, giving Lumi time in the yard first and then putting Ten out in the yard only when Lumi's back inside and back in his crate. He's been spending time out in the yard with Blizzard, Spot, and Nellie, and sometimes Tansy. Every once in a while Nellie gets a bug in her ear and takes a couple of chomps at Tansy. I holler at her, she quits, and that's that.

Some of my friends from the volunteer thing I do maintain a 2-mile stretch of highway, picking up trash a couple of times a year. I live right in the middle of that 2-mile stretch. I saw these friends in front of the house this morning and went out to say hi. Blizzard, Ten, Spot, Nellie, and Tansy were in the yard. The friends wanted to see the dogs, and came up to the fence. Tansy's got a bad habit of pushing past/over other dogs to get to people. It's very rude, from a canine point of view, and any dog with any sense of canine manners just doesn't do it. But Tansy has no canine manners, is frequently very rude with other big dogs, and often gets scolded by them as a result.

(I had another foster dog a long time ago with the same insensibility of canine manners that Tansy has. Like her, he was a great dog. Very sweet, very people-oriented, and just a little too needy. He used to bump other dogs out of the way to get to me, or walk on them if they were on the floor between him and me. He used to get smacked for his rudeness on a regular basis, too. And, also like Tansy, he never learned the lesson.)

Anyway, Tansy wanted to see the people, and pushed Nellie. Nellie objected with her teeth. I yelled at her, she quit, but just that little bit of tension was like a flash in a powder keg. Blizzard saw her opportunity to take a swipe at Tansy, too. Blizz hates rude dogs in general, and dislikes Tansy in particular, but doesn't mess with her beyond a warning because she knows she'll be in trouble if she does. (She has learned self-restraint over the years. It took a long time, though.) Blizz jumped into the fray and it probably would have ended there pretty quick, but Ten jumped in on Blizzard. By the time I got out to them, only Ten and Blizzard were involved and Ten was winning. I finally got him to let go of her, and kept her from coming back at him immediately by pushing her away once with my foot on her shoulder.

Ten has gotten too big for his britches. He doesn't have much impulse control to start with, and he's gained a new sense of power from the altercations of the last few weeks. He's gone from the somewhat submissive boy who takes a scolding, backs off and says "hey, I didn't mean anything by it" to being king of the hill with no idea how to handle the power he's recently discovered he has. I don't know if I can fix it, or if he'll grow out of it (like Blizzard did), or even if I should try/wait. After Friday's fight with Lumi, I said "that's two strikes, one more and I'm going to have a hard decision to make." I can't decide if this qualifies as the third strike or not.

I know exactly what provoked this morning's fight, and the circumstances were unusual. I can absolutely prevent the occurrence of a similar trigger, and I can keep Ten apart from everyone but Spot and Nellie while I put him on an intense program of exercise and discipline. They've always been submissive to him, and he's always known it. He has nothing to prove with them, and they're not interested in provoking him. They're good friends, it's safe to put them out together.

When Ten and Lumi fought, only a physical barrier would have prevented either of them from trying to get to the other one again. Even if I'd been able to get them apart, a dirty look would have been all it took to get it started again. This morning, once I got Ten and Blizzard separated and pushed her away when she made her one attempt to come back at him and teach him a lesson, he did not try to re-engage even though she was glaring at him, but stood vigilant yet calm by my side. (I had my hand through the loop in his martingale collar so I could stop him if he tried to re-engage, but he's 105 pounds and if he really wanted to go back at her he'd have dragged me along with him.) I don't know whether that's because she doesn't make him as angry as Lumi does, if once he took a step back he remembered that she's higher in the pack order than he is, or if it's because he's beginning to learn how to regain his self-control after he loses it.

On the other hand, I don't know if I can fix him. And while I will do my very best to be as vigilant as possible to keep him apart from dogs other than Spot and Nellie - and Tansy, who is so far beneath his radar that she basically doesn't exist in his world - and I'm better set up here to keep dogs separated than I was before, I'm not perfect and I can't be sure I won't screw up. I have before, when I've had to keep dogs separated. It's not fair to Blizzard or Lumi for me to keep a dog that's aggressive toward them. I'm not sure I'm physically capable of handling him; I could have ten years ago, but handling him when he's not complying is a lot tougher now and I hurt more and longer afterward. Shoot, I was sore for a week after wrestling him into the bathtub a while back. My wrists still hurt this morning from Friday's incident; they hurt worse now, and after a couple of hours my forearms still feel like jelly. I can feel the muscles in my back and my hamstrings tightening, and I know I'm going to be stiff and sore tomorrow.

I don't know what to do. I know what I should do, I just don't know that I'm ready to. I don't know if I can unless I know I did my best to try to fix him, and I don't know if I could forgive myself if someone else gets hurt while I tried. If I thought, by any stretch of the imagination, that Ten was aggressive toward humans, the decision would be simple and inarguable. It's not so clear cut when a dog is safe with humans but not with other dogs.

(No, I will not re-home him if I can't fix him.)

Home Improvement

I got started on my flooring project this weekend. I decided to start with the kitchen rather than the family room, simply because my sis came Saturday afternoon and I had her help to move the two large cabinets in the kitchen that I can't move myself. The paint I bought last Monday actually works well in the kitchen, being a deeper shade of the pale peach highlights in the kitchen panelling. I really wanted a deep blue in the family room anyway but had settled for the "Tile Red" (which is actually a brownish-coral color) because the paint guy at Lowe's hadn't been able to figure out how to tint the paint the color I originally picked. (I'm going be checking elsewhere when I'm ready to get paint for the family room, I'd really like blue in there. If I can't get the deep blue, I know I can get a light sage green color in this paint and that would be my second choice for the family room.)

I knew the kitchen flooring under the carpet was probably not perfect. Nothing in this house is. The young couple who lived here before me did a lot of "renovations" here themselves. He was a whiz with car restoration and building custom hot rods, but really had no idea what he was doing when it came to home construction/repairs. He had replaced the plywood sheet in front of the sink and set it in a little crooked, so there's gap on one side that tapers from just 1/8" at one end to almost half an inch at the other. And next to that there are a couple of small pieces that had replaced a small section of a bigger piece of plywood. None of the edges are flush, the edge of one piece is either higher or lower than the piece next to it. I did some research today, and I think I should be able to fix the problem for less than $10 in materials - some acrylic wood filler and sandpaper. I'm sure that someday, someone will look at my "fix" and say "geez, she did really sloppy work...." but as long as I can get it fairly level I don't much care what posterity thinks of my techniques. I'll stop at Lowe's on my way to class (if I get going early enough) or on the way home and pick up the wood filler and see what I can do about getting that down tonight, and sanded tomorrow when it's dry. I need to remember to pick up a craft knife, too, to cut the carpet along the edge of the cabinets, and a small foam paint brush for priming/painting along there, too.

I got a 3-foot strip along one wall primed and painted this weekend, and got the cabinet and microwave cart back into place there. I also got a 3-foot strip done along another wall, and got the refrigerator and floor-to-ceiling cabinet back into place over it. My sis helped out by duct-taping the carpet and padding I pulled up into easily lifted/handled bundles and piled them up in a corner of the kitchen where I wasn't working. Unfortunately, it was in front of the coffee maker and while I managed to lean over the pile yesterday morning to make coffee, my poor aching muscles started screaming this morning when I tried to do it, so before I even got my coffee started I removed that pile of carpet and padding, putting some of it in my trash cart and some of it out in the garage to go into the trash cart over the next couple of weeks. Then I got the coffee brewing and ripped up another big piece of carpet and padding. Just one more big piece to go, then all that's left is a strip of carpet along the front of the cabinets (they put the cabinets down over the carpet, I'm not pulling out the cabinets to get to it!), the patch under the stove, and a small patch in the corner where I have to crawl under the kneehole of a small built-in "desk". Oh yeah, I have to pull everything on the floor of my pantry out, and get the carpet in there up too.

I need to get at least the perimeter primed and painted as quickly as possible, before anycat decides to pee on the plywood. I don't have anything scheduled for tomorrow, so I should be able to get the primer down early in the day when the dogs are all outside, and then I'll paint those areas before bedtime tomorrow. I've got some sections of a plastic exercise pen that I can use to block the areas off so they can dry overnight without getting kitty footprints in them. When I'm ready to put down a second coat of paint with a roller, I'm going to lure as many cats into the family room as I can and close the door so they're shut in there overnight, and use a baby gate with a wire crate panel on top of it to block the doorway from the dining room to the kitchen so anycat who's not closed up in the family room won't be able to get into the kitchen. If I keep working at it and don't have any setbacks, I should have the kitchen floor finished by the end of next weekend.

I did the home visit last Monday for the Low Riders. Very, very nice people whose last Dachsie lived to be 19. I'd taken Roux along with me, and I left him there. The other two will be joining him in that home a week from Friday, the day after they're neutered.

I did a home visit on Saturday for Parchesi the boggle puppy. Lovely family, they're going to love her to pieces and I think she's a great fit for them. They have three children, and Parchesi's got a sweet, gentle nature so I think this is a very good match. The Cheesy-puppy is scheduled to be spayed 2 weeks from today, and I'll keep her until 2 weeks from Friday. Max the Shih Tzu is going in the same day as the Low Riders, so he'll be ready to go after that. I've gotten one application for him, but I'm going up to my mom's on Thursday and taking him along to see if he'd be a good match for her and Daisy. I'm taking Ruby the Cavalier to the vet on Thursday morning; I'm pretty sure she's got a perineal hernia. If that needs to be repaired it should be done when she's spayed, but that's beyond the scope of the s/n clinic, so it'll have to be done by the local vet. We'll see what she says about whether or not it needs to be repaired, and how much it's going to cost. It'll be at least $120 (for the spay) and the repair will be extra. I've gotten a couple of donations from some Cavalier people, and I've got a good home lined up that's willing to kick in for it up to double the adoption fee, so that should cover it. We'll see.

I made the mistake of putting Rose the Cavalier up on Petfinder already, at the same time I had a cute baby puppy listed. I've spent hours and hours answering e-mails about the two of them the last week, sometimes not being able to get away from the computer for 6 hours straight. I've gotten at least a couple dozen inquiries on Rose, and from all over the country. I had to amend her description to read that we're only considering homes within a 4 hour drive of us right now. I've gotten half a dozen applications back, but only two of them are worth considering. One of them is almost exactly what I was looking for, but they have a 3-year old Cavalier that's not spayed - though they're supposedly planning on having her spayed soon - and I won't place a dog in a home where there are intact pets. I have to question their judgement, too. If they weren't planning on breeding her, why would they wait until she's 3 years old to have her spayed? Nevermind the annoyance of dealing with twice-yearly heat cycles, what about the risk of mammary cancer? (Besides, I already denied another otherwise-good home because there's an intact Lab mix there.) The other home feeds Beneful, and needs a little updating on their discipline techniques. *sigh* It's a good home otherwise, though, and they're close to Costco, so getting them to switch to the Kirkland food shouldn't be a problem. I think I'll schedule a home visit, and see how I feel once I meet them and have a chance to talk with them a little.

The day I'm taking the Low Rider and Max to be neutered, the blade sharpener guy is scheduled to come to the groomer south of me. I'll drop my clipper blades off there in the morning on my way to the s/n clinic, and pick them up that afternoon. Then I'll be able to get Ernie the Shih Tzu groomed, and get The Chooch cleaned up a little. I'm also going to talk to the woman who told me about the puppymiller close to me, and find out for sure if I spoke to the right people. Later that afternoon I'm doing the homevisit for Ruby. If I don't get it done before then I'll do Rose's HV that day too, since they're all in the same geographical area. In 2 and a half weeks I should have gotten at least 4 little dogs placed, and maybe 5 or 6. For the rest of the summer I'm going to stick to taking in only one or two at a time so I'll have more time to work on getting the house done and working in the garden.

I think I'm going to try something new for tomatoes this year. I have a dozen varieties of heirloom tomatoes I want to plant, and I think I'm going to get 18- or 22-gallon totes, put those together in the sunny part of my back yard that's outside the fence, and grow one plant of each variety in each tote. I'll put either a piece of rebar or a t-post into the ground at the end of each 3-tote row and use that to anchor the "Florida Weave" trellis system I'd like to try. I'm going to see what it'll cost me to get a half-yard of topsoil delivered, and then amend that with manure compost and peat to go into the totes. It's got to be cheaper than buying 40-pound bags of potting mix. I'll still put some plants in hanging baskets, and a few in the garden proper too, but the fewer plants I put into the garden, the more room there will be for peppers, zuccini, watermelon, cukes, pumpkins, and beans. I'm going to do pole beans this year, I saved some seeds from last year and I can easily make a couple of trellises for them, so I'll get a larger harvest out of fewer plants and a smaller space than I did last year with bush beans. I need to get out to the garden and get it ready for planting, but it's not going to be warm enough to do that until at least the end of the week. My sis brought me a peony plant, and yesterday we prepared a place for that to go in this coming weekend, when it'll be a little warmer. I bought myself a Concord grape plant; I know where I want to put it, I've just got to get that place prepared too. (Won't have grapes for jelly this year, but should have them by next summer!)

Time to get back to work. I'm tired, and I didn't sleep well last night, and I'd really like to have a little nap instead, but I'm going to practice self-discipline and get some work done.

Busy Week Ahead

I got an inquiry on the Low Riders from someone who wants all three of them. She's a little technologically challenged and has had trouble returning the application I e-mailed her. But she gave me quite a bit of information in her initial inquiry, including contact info for her vet. Her husband built ramps in their house for her old Dachsie, so he could go everywhere they did. She says "it's only two steps, but that's a lot when you're only four inches tall!" She's had Dachsies for 40 years. I spoke with her on the phone today, and I'm sure she's going to provide a great home for the boys. I'll check the vet ref in the morning, and then I'm going to do her home visit tomorrow afternoon. She's an hour the other side of where I go to teach my Monday class, about 2 hours from here, so as long as I have to go into class I might as well go the extra hour and get the home visit done. Roux is ready to go now, since he's already neutered. I'll take him along tomorrow when I do the home visit, and if everything's OK and they want to have him tomorrow, I'll leave him there. The other two can't go until they're neutered on May 8.

I put Parchesi the Boggle puppy up on petfinder last week and have been deluged with applications, most of them either bad or just mediocre. But I got a good one tonight, so I'll check the vet ref on that one tomorrow and maybe get the home visit done next weekend. My sis is coming out next weekend, I think, maybe I can get her to do the driving if I pay for the gas. Parchesi's scheduled to be spayed May 12, which is a Monday, so she'll probably be with me until Friday that week.

I got a great application for George. I struggled with the decision to make him available for adoption, because I love him dearly and he adores Dudley. But I feel strongly that he belongs with someone else, and when I got this application I knew I'd found the right home. I'm even more sure after talking to his potential adopter today. They're in southeastern Pennsylvania, and though I'm usually reluctant to place an animal so far away, they're going to love George and he's going to be just fine there. They'd be willing to drive all the way here to get him, but shoot - it's 11 hours one way, so coming to get him would take the entire weekend. (Not to mention cost them a fortune in gas.) I'm trying to figure out a way to get him transported part of the way, somewhere close enough to them that they could get there to get him and get back in one day. Eastern OH or western PA would be good, I've just got to find a ride for him that far. The other option would be to try one of my flight attendant contacts, and if I can't find overland transport for him I might have to do that. But I'd have to wait until I could afford to get a health cert ($40) and buy a Sherpa carrier (George is too big to fit into an 11" tall hard carrier), and then it might still run $75 for him to ride in the cabin with the flight attendant.

I got the floor in my half bath primed this afternoon, and spent a sweaty, frustrating hour and a half getting 2/3 of the floor - just 12 square feet - covered in self-stick tile. That was the "easy" part, the only place I couldn't put down a whole tile is where the heat duct comes up through the floor. And I had a hard time even cutting that opening out because, of course, the rectangle wasn't square at the corners and the sides weren't straight. This house.... there isn't a straight line, square corner, or level foot of flooring anywhere in the place. I'm having a helluva time trying to get the tiles down so there are no gaps between them. I managed to get them nice and snug in most places, but there are a couple that have small gaps. They're not easy to see when I'm standing up, but there's enough of a gap there that any liquid that hits the floor is going to seep down through. I'm going to have to fill those gaps with something, maybe a little tub caulk applied with a toothpick? The tough part is left to do, cutting to fit around the commode, the water line, and the threshold. I'm so disgusted right now I'm not even going to think about touching it again until Tuesday or Wednesday.

I did some research into paint for the cement floor in the family room, and I think I've found a paint that will give me the durability I'm looking for but not run me an arm and a leg (about $22/gallon, and $12 for a gallon of sealer/primer). An oil-based paint would be even more durable, but it's got a long drying time - not even light foot traffic for 24 hours. That's just not practical, as the sliding door in the family room is how the dogs get out into the yard and they have to go through the room to get to it. The latex-based "porch and floor" paint is OK for light foot traffic after just 6 hours, so if I put everyone to bed and paint the floor, it'll be dry enough in the morning for dogs to walk on, though I might put down some cardboard for the big dogs to walk on just to be on the safe side. I haven't decided on a color yet.

I'm so tired of looking at these plain light beige walls. Dull, dull, dull. I played around with the color painter at the Behr website, and I've got some ideas now about what colors I want. I found an interior paint that has Scotchguard in it. It's called Sensations, and it's available only at Ace Hardware. I'll have to go to Home Depot to pick up the Behr color chips and have Ace match them. (I want the paint with Scotchguard, it'll make cleaning so much easier. Not just on the windowsills, either (dirty little cat feet), but on the walls themselves, particularly on the corners that tend to get dirtiest.) I'm going for some bright-ish colors, a light robin's egg/sky blue for the living room and 2 dining room walls, with a rich rose for trim and the other two dining room walls, and the palest tinge of pink for the ceiling. It's not as garish as it sounds, I think it'll be pretty when it's done. At least it won't be boring any more. For the bedroom I think a pale dusty pink, with a rosy-taupe for the trim. For the half-bath, pale blue on the walls with a delft blue for the trim. It's going to take me all summer to get it done, but I will get it done. I need to finish getting pet screening in the rest of the screens and the sliding screen door, too.

I checked the ruby-throated hummingbird 2008 migration map the other day and the first hummers were seen south of me early last week, so I made nectar today and got the feeders filled and hung out. I can't wait for my little friends to return.

Contact, I Think

I drove down the road where I was told the commercial breeder was. I saw two places that looked like they might be the right place. At the first one a couple was sitting outside, and I figured they'd be a good place to start. I went onto another road and found a good place to park for a minute while I thought through what I wanted to say. I got my wallet out to get a business card for the rescue, so I could write my name and number on it to give to them. Then inspiration struck - Monday night I'd stopped at Chris's to drop something off; she wasn't home, but had left some stuff there for me, including 3 coupons for a free 20-pound bag of Pedigree. Although I'd never feed it, I thought the coupons (no expiration date) might come in handy, maybe to give to someone who was considering giving up a dog because they couldn't afford to feed it. When I saw those coupons in my wallet, I knew I could use them to break the ice.

I asked if they were the folks who bred dogs and they said no, of course. "I don't know anyone around here who breeds dogs." But there was a dog pen with a plastic tarp roof over half of it right there, and it had clearly been used by small dogs. And I heard several small dogs barking in the back, and had caught a glimpse of some rabbit cages, so I'm pretty sure I got the right place. Besides, the road is only half a mile long - if he wasn't the breeder, he darn well knows who is. I told the guy "maybe you can use these, I feed something else," and gave him the coupons. He asked me if I was interested in a little dog. (Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner!) I told him that no, I wasn't interested in a little dog right now, handed him my card, and explained that I do dog rescue and I'd be interested in taking unwanted breeding dogs and/or unsaleable puppies, or any dog that a commercial breeder couldn't sell for one reason or another. I explained that I'm not an animal rights activist and I'm not looking to cause any trouble for anyone, I was just interested in the dogs. Explained that I run on a pretty tight budget so I couldn't afford to pay much, but would be willing to pay a nominal amount for dogs. I told him I live close by and could pick up dogs almost immediately after I was called. He never acknowledged that he was the guy I was looking for, but if that wasn't the right place I'll eat dog food for a week.

Now, we wait and see if I scored a hit. The next time I'm down past the place where the woman told me about "some guy on XXXXX Rd. with 100 dogs in rabbit cages", I'll stop and ask if she knows for sure which place it is. If I got the right guy but haven't heard from him in a month or so, I'll stop back again.

As the Revolving Door Turns

Duke, Duchess, and Olivia all went to their new homes over the weekend. And 6 more little puppymill survivors arrived Friday night - two male Shih Tzus (age 1 and 3), two Cavalier King Charles Spaniel girls (both 4, I think one might be pregnant), a very scared little Papillon girl, and an 8-week old, deliberately-bred Boston Terrier/Beagle mix puppy. (It's one of the newer "designer mixes" - a Boggle.) They're at various levels of socialization, from Max the little Shih Tzu boy who's as outgoing and snuggly as they come, to the little Papillon (as yet unnamed, because I have no clue what her personality is going to be like) who's absolutely terrified and tries to dig herself a hole in the corner of my bathroom to hide in when I open the door.

I'm sure she'll come around, though. Chu-Chu was almost as scared when she got here 5 weeks ago, and she has absolutely blossomed. She loves going for rides in the car, so I take her along whenever it's feasible. She still isn't much on being a lap dog, but she loves her skritches, pets, and kisses. At bedtime, she comes into the bedroom and waits for me to pick her up and put her on the bed. (And in the morning, she stands there and waits for me to lift her down.) When I lie down, she comes up for a goodnight kiss, then settles in somewhere about halfway down the bed, snuggled up to whoever's close. When I'm doing morning cuddles/pets, she gets right in with the rest of the gang demanding her share. When I went to teach my class last night I took Chu-Chu, Sparky, and Penny with me, intending to use Sparky as my demo dog and bring the Chooch in just to hang out. Sparky wasn't in the mood to be compliant so I ended up putting him back in the car and bringing Penny in to demo with.

As I was waiting for my students to arrive I got out my baggie of bait - tiny pieces of hot dog - and started a little warm-up with Penny, but I was also treating the Chooch. Just for the heck of it, I thought "she probably won't do it, but let's see if I can teach her to 'sit'." Much to my surprise, she got it almost immediately! And then she got "watch me" just as fast. She was eager, focused, and more than happy to do what I was asking (as long as I was rewarding her with "food! food! give me food!") I ended up using her to show my students how to teach their dogs "watch me" and "sit". I'm going to work with her this week, see if she can learn "down" and "come". I'm betting she'll catch onto those just as quickly.

What a little doll-baby she is, and such a little character. She insists on going out in the big yard with the big dogs when she needs to poop. She'll pee in the patio, but wants the wide open space of the big yard for her bowel movement. Actually, she's got a favorite potty place out there. The big dogs race around, she just does her little Shih Tzu bounce around the yard and doesn't pay them any attention. And they don't bother her. I was standing out there watching her this morning, and I was laughing out loud. (She makes me laugh out loud half a dozen times a day.) And now she's an obedience dog. What a hoot! It's going to be very, very hard to let her go. Maybe nobody will want a tiny, nearly-toothless little girl?

I've got Max the littler Shih Tzu boy scheduled for his neuter on May 8, along with the two intact Low Riders, Beau and Bailey. 4 days later, I've got Parchesi the Boston/Beagle puppy, Rose the littler Cavalier girl, and the grizzly grey Shih Tzu boy going in. I'm going to hold off scheduling Ruby the Cav (in case I'm right and she's pregnant) and the little Papillon (to give her time to start coming around) for a couple of weeks. I'll need to get one or two of the others adopted out first, anyway, so the adoption fees can be used to pay for the surgeries. The spay/neuter clinic is offering rabies vaccines for $10 now, which is both convenient and a budget saver - I don' t have to make the 18-mile drive in to the vet for just the rabies vaccine, which is administered by a tech, not preceded by an exam first, and costs $23.

I received some very disturbing information last week. It seems there's a puppymill practically right around the corner from me. Less than a couple of miles from my house there's someone who (supposedly) has over 100 dogs in rabbit hutches. I'm going to take a drive down that road in the next couple of days and see if I can figure out where it is. Then I'll work on a plan to insinuate myself with this person, to see if he'll let me have his discards (or sell them to me cheap) - breeding stock that's not producing any more, unsaleable puppies, etc. Maybe I can help clean up my own backyard.

The weather was horrible over the weekend, but it was nice yesterday, it's nicer today, and it's supposed to keep right on getting nicer through the weekend. It was so nice to be able to stand outside to dump litterboxes this morning, and it sure makes life easier - anything that spills just gets hosed into the flower beds (I use wood pellets, it's fine to use it for mulch) so I don't have to do any sweeping, and I can wheel the trash cart right over to the bags of waste and not have to carry them through the back hall and garage to get to the cart. I'm going to get all of the dog crates out to the yard and scrubbed down this week, a couple a day. It's so much easier to do it outside than it is to do it in the tub! The 400 Varikennels fit through the doorways (but don't fit in the tub unless they're broken down) and only the 500's need to be broken down to get them outside, I can scrub them and then hose them off to rinse them, turn them door-down and let them air-dry, and there's no flooded dirty bathroom to clean afterward.

I've decided the only way I'm going to have my house the way I want it is to do it myself. I'm never going to get the help of my male relatives and I can't afford to hire someone else to do it, so I'm just going to do it myself. I pulled up the carpet, pad, and tack strips from the half-bath floor, and treated the plywood with a wash of Odormute. It's all ready for the latex primer (and I'm using Kilz latex sealer) and then I can put down self-stick tile. I couldn' figure out how I was going to make a pattern for cutting the tile to fit around the toilet, but then I realized I could use the carpet I removed, so I just rolled that up and stuck it in the garage for now. Once that's done, I'm going to tackle the family room. It used to be the garage, it's a square room and has a cement slab floor. I'll pull out the carpet and padding, wash the cement, seal it with Kilz, and paint it. Something bright and cheery, that room's a little dark. Once that's done I'll be able to use the family room for rescue purposes - crating, grooming, supplies storage, whelping area/nursery room when necessary, even training. I'll know in a few weeks if I'm going to be able to get vinyl in the rest of the house. If not, then I plan to pull up all the rest of the carpeting, sand the plywood floor, seal, and paint it, one room at a time. Might even do some stencilling on the floors if I get really ambitious. That can even be done in the winter, a little at a time.

I've sat long enough. Time to get up and get back to work.

Geriatric Delinquent

OK, so I'm not the most regular blogger. It seems that whenever I have the inclination I don't have the time, and when I have the time, I don't have the inclination. Or I'm just too darn tired. I do want to post more often, though; things happen here every day that make me think "Gee, I'd like to share this with someone". If I blog, I do have someone(s) to share with. So I'm really going to try to blog more regularly.

It's been a long day. I was thinking earlier "man, the weather was gorgeous today and I didn't get anything done!" But then I realized that wasn't true. I broke down and scrubbed out three big varikennels and three large cat carriers (currently in use as small dog crates) this morning, washed dog bowls, got Que ready for her mom who came early this afternoon to get her, carted a big folding crate Que's mom gave me out to the pole barn, while I was there I searched through my stash of collars to see if I had anything that would fit the short boys, did 3 loads of laundry, emptied wastebaskets and gathered trash and took that all out to the cart, updated the folks about the Dachsies, got crates set up for them in the living room, paid bills, got the schedule info submitted for my summer obedience classes, and did the heel flap and turned the heel on the first sock of a pair in the Pembrokshire Pathways pattern (in a gorgeous hand-dyed yarn from Pagewood Farms in the colorway Turquoise). So it wasn't true that I hadn't gotten anything done.

Then I fixed myself a little dinner, repaired an extension cord, hooked up the clippers, and removed Duchess' beautiful feathers. Her new mom "doesn't do the cocker cut", and offered to pay me to groom her. She looks really good, weight wise, and you can see it even better without the feathering. She was pudgy and flabby when she got here, she's svelte and sleek and at a perfect weight, now. Duchess, Duke, and Olivia are going in to the spay/neuter clinic in the morning, so they all had to have baths tonight. I figured I might as well clip Duchess now instead of waiting until the end of the week, it would take less time to shampoo her and less time for her to dry. (Mrs. Parker, Chu-Chu, and Sparky are going to the clinic on Thursday. While I'm there tomorrow, I'll get the two intact Dachsies scheduled .)

Three baths given, three clean dogs tucked into clean crates with clean blankets. Three Dachsies taken out and supervised, then given their first lesson in crating (they got their dinner in their crates). Two more shifts of dogs out, then dinner for everyone. Then I decided it was time for a treat, so I sat down here with the last Leinie's Creamy Dark Lager to check e-mail. Too tired to get up and go to bed, here I sit.

I am having so much fun watching The Chooch find herself. Her most recent step into real doghood is to play, with Sparky. She has such a crush on him, it's the sweetest thing. She follows him everywhere, and takes every opportunity she can find to mount him - her idea of a play invitation. Sparky, bless his sweet, easy-going heart, isn't bothered by Chooch's crude approach, he just rolls onto his back so they're wrestling face to face. She's started to play growl, and if it weren't for her body language indicating clearly that she's playing, I'd interpret the sound as pre-attack aggressive. Sparky's not bothered by her vocalizations, either. (He really is the most easy-going, loving little dog in the world. I absolutely adore him.) She asks to be petted now, and actively seeks me out for attention. She's so funny, such an odd, determined little mite. I get such a tickle out of her.

Oh, it is so quiet here without Que. The energy level in here has dropped by half. Sure is nice.

I'm Official

The rescue is official, we got our Petfinder approval a week ago last Thursday. I spent most of Thursday night, Friday and Friday night, and Saturday getting the home page set up and getting pics and bios of all the adoptables posted. I started getting inquiries in less than 24 hours.

Violet, one of the estate sale kittens, is going to her new home tomorrow afternoon. Her adopters are 3 hours away, so I'm meeting them in the middle to do the contract and transfer Violet into their care. I need to get a little adoption packet together for her - her paperwork, a ziploc of food, a couple of toys, a few pipecleaners. They're a young engaged couple and they're thrilled to be getting their first pet together. Violet will be living with her mom until the wedding, in August 2009. She's such a good, sweet, gentle kitten, I'm sure they're going to adore her.

After I do that adoption, I'm taking Simon to meet his potential new people. They wanted to wait until a weekend to take him, but I think I'll take the contract and his paperwork along with us tomorrow, just in case they decide they can't wait until Friday for him. This is an excellent home, and very close to being exactly what I was hoping to find for him. They don't have any children, yet, but they're young (under 25) and, since he's a pastor, there are often children from the church that come over, so Simon should have lots of children in his life. He'll also be living with a couple of cats.

I've had inquiries on George, TJ, and Nellie, too. I'm going to deny the app for George, he'd be the tenth cat in the house and I think he'd be happiest in a home where he can be the star. One or two other cats, or even no cats if there's a little dog or two. (He just adores Dudley. Dudley used to carry George around by the scruff when he was little, George thinks Dudley's his mama.) I'm mulling over the one on TJ, I don't know if he'd be good with a pair of older cats or if he'd be totally disruptive. He likes dogs, and there IS a cat-friendly dog there. I'll check the vet ref tomorrow, see how I feel after that. And the inquiry on Nellie just came in this evening, so I just sent off an application. Sounds like a possibility, she'd be living with a large, playful male lab, and a large, playful male would be the perfect companion for Nell. She's a little rough with the little dogs, she's a little dominant when it comes to other female dogs (though she's never dared even look sideways at Blizzard), but she's awesome with the boys. I put Nellie, Simon, and Spot all out together, and recently have allowed Seal out there with them for short periods, and they've always been great together.

I did a home visit today for Seal. He's not scheduled to be neutered for a week and a half yet, but I wanted to have a home lined up and waiting for him when he was ready to go. His mom-to-be works half an hour away from the spay/neuter clinic, and she'll just meet me there when it's time to pick him up and we'll do the paperwork then. I think he'll be very happy there, and I think they'll love him to bits. He was so dirty this morning, I had no choice but to give him the bath I'd been dreading. I should have remembered he's half Lab - I put him in the tub and started to spray him and he just stood there with a happy smile on his face. Easiest puppy bath I've ever given. And oh man, once he dried he was so silky and glossy and soft. (I used diluted Palmolive dish soap!) He's really a very sweet puppy, and he's finally starting to become a little more civilized. He's still a spazzy lab mix puppy, but I think something's finally flipped the "ON" switch in his brain. He got 'sit' today, and I finally saw a glimmer of understanding in his eyes as far as housebreaking goes. "Ahhhhhhhh, that's what you want me to do when I'm outside!!!"

I drove up to my mom's and picked her up, then she and Daisy made the 1.3 hour drive with Seal and me. Mom thinks he's absolutely adorable, but "man, he's a live wire, isn't he?!" Oh yes, live wire indeed. I handed her the google maps directions I'd printed out this morning. She got me lost 3 times before I finally got through to her how to read them. "One step at a time, Mom. We do this (pointing) for this many (pointing) miles, then we go on to the next step." It was frustrating. On the other hand, by the time we passed the same pedestrian walking on the shoulder for the 4th time (2 times in each direction) we were laughing pretty hard. We decided to come back a different way so we could make a couple of stops, so while I was inside doing the HV Mom got out the map and figured out a return route. And then, if I hadn't had a pretty good idea of where I was going and so ignored her directions, for the most part, she'd have gotten me lost 3 more times.

Mom used to be so sharp with a map, but not any more. She used to be so sharp about a lot of things she's a little vague about these days. She's still good to live on her own, in the environment she's used to, but for the first time I'm realizing the time will come when she won't be able to live independently. It won't be soon - a matter of years rather than months - but I know I'm going to need to be increasingly more aware of what's going on in her life. I've been going to her house every couple of weeks, I think I should probably increase the frequency of my visits to once a week.