Weekend Happenings

I didn’t have a super busy weekend…plenty busy but not super busy.  I have my daughter Kelli’s kiddos here on Saturday.  I warned her that I had a cold but we both agreed that the kids had remnants of colds as well and we thought we all got if from the same place.

From left to right, it’s Emmett, Georgia, and Eli.  Previously they were all really hard to take care of.  Nowadays, it’s getting much easier.  The boys are talking and can say, limitedly, what they want.  That has been so helpful.  What isn’t as helpful…they get into Georgie’s “set ups”.  She just freaks out but it is so much better now.

The kids were immediately… attracted to Susie.  Their own beagle reminds me much of Susie.  Their dog is 12 and in much the same condition… overweight and slow but super mellow.

I was nervous about how Susie would be around kids as she was the dog of an older couple who never had children.  I figured she wasn’t exposed to kids much but Susie loved the attention.  I was so happy for that.

Susie, my foster dog, has good news.  Two people put in an application for her and one is approved pending a good meet and greet.  I am just thrilled.  It turns out I will be keeping Susie until she can go.  She has a dental appointment on March 6th and then we’ll see how the meet and greet goes.  I’m so happy for her.

Susie is a natural at being a cross-stitch companion.  She’s so sweet…even though she snores.

Another task I had was to try to get some good pictures of Susie.  I’ll be honest, she isn’t the most attractive dog.  People aren’t likely to run to her like they run to a puppy and declare how cute she is.  I was able to snap a few while she was at my feet at the supper table whining and whining because she wants scraps.  I am sure she had a healthy people meal at the table every night for all she whines.  The poor girl is on a diet though so I just listen to the whining and snap pictures!  HA!!

I think doing childcare has made me dull the sound of whining in my brain.  I can totally tolerate it if I know it’s for the well-being of the dog.

Over the weekend Mindy went to her furever home.  Oh my…just in time.  I had the pen up in the kitchen.  Mindy spent a lot of time in the pen with her cone on because of all the complications she had after her spay surgery on the 1st of February.  If you remember, she gave me a scare on the 4th and I ended up needing to take her to the vet.  She stayed there through the 8th on IV meds and finally them opening her up and cleaning out the incision.  I got her back to my house on the 8th with strict instructions that she had to keep the cone on and had to not do anything that would endanger her healing.  That meant she had to stay in the pen if the other dogs were loose so they wouldn’t rough-house.

I was beyond careful with her.  I would kennel all the other dogs except Susie and let her out of the pen.  I would take her on a walk with Susie and take her cone off when we went as she couldn’t lick if we were on a walk.  Then I let her run in the house for a while before the cone went back on and she went back to her pen.

Well, Saturday morning I came downstairs to see her sitting at the bottom of the stairs with no cone and all excited to see me.  WHAT!!  How did that happen?  I picked her up, I looked at her incision.  Whew.  It looked okay.  I put her back in the pen, got her cone, turned around to put the cone on her, and what????  She had jumped up on the kennel that was in the pen and was trying to launch herself over the pen.  Oh, my word???!?!?!

I put her cone back on…checked her incision again…whew.  It was okay.  The kennel was taken out of the pen so she couldn’t jump on it and try to escape again.  Oh my.  I’ve not been so thankful that a dog was going home.  Her new owners picked her up Saturday afternoon.  I think she is going to enjoy the extra one on one time with them.  When a dog has to be isolated from other dogs, it makes it all just a little harder to foster.  Her new dad is a walker/jogger so I just know they are going to make the perfect pair.

On Sunday I was still feeling crappy.  Izzy was supposed to go to obedience class.  I opted not to go.  When I initially got Izzy, I had always thought about trying to train her to go to nursing homes and be a comfort pet.  To do that, she would have to have obedience classes so I tried to sign up…the timing was wrong.  The place where she was going to take classes contacted me when I new class was opening.  I decided to sign up.  Well, there are six classes.  I missed two of the three already and I already know I’ll have to miss next week too.  I am just going to drop the classes altogether.  Again, the timing was terrible.

I still do training at home with her…I know the way she is now, she couldn’t be in a nursing home yet anyway.  She is only 9 months old and she still has the behaviors of a 9-month-old pup like jumping.  Not terrible but she can’t do that at all if she was going to be a nursing home dog.  So until she’s outgrown that, I’m not going to worry about it too much.  There is part of those behaviors that have to be completely trained out and some that go with training and age.  Izzy is super smart but her age works against her sometimes.  She is constantly getting better though.

By Sunday I was down to just these two fosters, Mork and Susie.  It was funny.  I put Susie’s leash on as I was going to take her outside.  Then decided I should probably go get my coat.  I went to get Susie and Mork grabbed ahold of the leash pulling Susie and Susie was walking with him.  Oh my, I laughed right out loud to see 3-month-old Mork “walking” 15-year-old Susie.

Sadly, Mork when to his new owner on Monday morning.  The new owner met me at his vet appointment.  Mork had back dew claws which the vet felt should be removed.  The incision was closed with stitches so he had to wait to be adopted until his stitches came out.  The new adoptee was so excited to get him that she asked if she could meet me at the vet.  SURE!!

Izzy and Mork were fast friends and I just know she is going to really miss him.  When he initially came I wasn’t in love with him.  He was fine but howled if he couldn’t see me and howled a long time at night when I went to bed.  I was so thankful I didn’t have windows open as the neighbors would have hated it.  He grew out of all of that and the little guy wiggled his way into my heart.

I would so love to see him once he’s a big dog.  He’s super smart and super social.  I just know he’s going to love his new home and will adjust quickly.

I am definitely going to miss the puppy snuggles he was so good at giving.

That was my weekend…I need to kick this cold as next weekend, I think all the grandkids are going to be here.  I guess I better get some cookies made.