A post about dogs

About 15 months ago we lost our first dog. The dog we bought when AB and I were serious. Together, planning a wedding and ready to take that first step bonding. Not ready for kids, ready for a dog. And we got a fabulous one. We lucked into our Winny when we ran across a batch of puppies called Belgian Shepherds. We were looking for German Shepherds, mostly. We ran home, looked up on the internet what a Belgian Shepherd was, it looked good. So we ran back, paid our $60 for a little black puppy who stole AB's sunglasses and took her home.

Aeowyn turned me into a dog lover. And she was an amazing dog.

Years went by - about 9 or so - and she started to show her age. Hips hurt, she slept a lot. So I decided she needed a sibling and I found one! A rescue. Also supposed to be a Belgian Shepherd - and she may have been 50% Belgian. But more Border Collie looking and acting. Freya. Freya wormed her way into our hearts and became a good dog too - after a little while. A little hyper and crazy, but wow, she loved us. And we loved her. Skadi especially. 

Then a few months ago in May we lost her suddenly to a surprise case of hemolytic anemia. We tried to save her, but it didn't take. For 4 months we were without a dog. We knew we couldn't get a puppy before going to Alaska for two weeks. And we had actually found an adorable little fawn colored Belgian Tervuren (which is later what we found out Winny was). But we couldn't commit and she ended up finding another home. 

We started looking for dogs and were stunned at how difficult it was. Granted we had a very narrow set of specifications - but we suffered a number of disappointments on our path. I could go on and on about the path we were on that was incredibly annoying. But that isn't what this post is about.

AB and I one night decided to give up the search for a dog. It wasn't meant to be. The right dog will find us. We were tired of people who were asinine about their so called "rescue organizations" and the need to conform to someone else's belief on what a good dog family looked like. (That would be, one without children, mostly.) Oh yes, I wasn't going there, steering back...

We had given it up. AB really wanted a puppy. I didn't. And I was the one who was going to be stuck with the large portion of dog care (or so I believed and still believe). A toddler and a puppy sounded utterly miserable.

Then I saw him and fell in love immediately.

And AB warned me - no way is it going to happen! So I put an application in since it was just another opportunity for someone to reject us.

A blonde German Shepherd. Friendly with young children, cats, house trained, learning to walk on a leash, kennel trained, a true rescue as he was believed to be abandoned and hit by a car, but better now. He was perfect.

And so he visited and he seemed alright. A bit attached to the Foster, but whatever. I saw it. I saw Winny in his eyes. We needed him.

And so the next day she brought him and dropped him off. For good. And with some Xanax.

And that first night AB and I sat there going WTF. "Trooper" was hyped up - the kids were afraid of him. The cat thought the devil himself had arrived. The dog stood on the top my freaking computer desk. I thought he was going to sail out the big picture window actually. He cried. He barked. And his foster didn't answer her e-mails. We presumed because it was the first time she had any sleep in weeks. I cried. What have I done to our family? AB said that tomorrow we would see how it went and evaluate it then all calm-like. I promised to never ever find another rescue dog ever. Ever.

The next morning wasn't much better. I packed my work stuff up, dried my red eyes and went into work. And left the spaz dog with my husband. I whined to a few colleagues and they all encouraged me to give it a little while - it's only been a day!

AB and I talked on the phone, he took the dog to a vet and got Prozac and a sedative. A local shepherd expert met him at the vet and offered her assistance and repeatedly urged him not to give up. We may be this dog's last chance. AB told her we didn't want him to get all attached to us only to pass him off to someone else. She didn't care about that - presumably because there wouldn't be another family on his list. It was about then that we found out he had gone to a foster who rejected him with a few hours claiming aggression towards the husband. If we, as experienced shepherd owners, couldn't make it work. He was done.

Now there is some pressure!

Then this happened.

And she declared that she loved him with all her heart and vowed to protect him for ever and ever and ever and never let anything bad happen to him again.

And we softened.

Then we went to the coast. And things went splendidly. A different dog suddenly emerged. There was no cat to harrass (and the cat got a break from spaz boy). And all of us fell in love.

Oh and he proved his desperate need to be with us at all times by swimming out to follow us in the row boat. That  was a short row. (Winny used to follow us on land.)

He is learning to walk on a leash, has had a bit of training, still thinks the cat is the most curious thing in the world, has some annoying habits that need to be broken.

He would lay down his life for every single member of our family. He is the first one to try to respond when Silas cries. He loves morning walks.

He is now our Odin.

Adoption proceedings

We have been so busy lately with readying ourselves for our new house that my blogs have been few and far between. I hit on a number of things to blog about nearly every day, it just seems to be a matter of having the time to sit down and write about it. Our house is a mess of boxes and whatever time I have in front of the computer is quickly translated into a need to get up and put things in boxes out of fear that the day is going to arrive that the movers will be here and we will not be prepared.

In the midst of all of that some of you know (those of you on Facebook mainly)… and some of you don’t know… that we will be adding to our family.

And this will be happening potentially this weekend.

We have one last hurdle to clear in our adoption process… a home study.

I can't help but compare this process to our friends’ adoption process of their daughter from India and am happy it is moving quickly. But at the same time I am amazed how long our process is taking given that our addition to the family runs on four legs and not two.

Looks like Winny, huh? But it's not.

Meet "Skeeter".

My mom told me about picking her cat out at the pound and the works of art who came in to adopt at the pound and how no one is checked thoroughly – like a couple who brought in a dog to surrender it and left with another dog they “just couldn’t resist”. Umm hello. You dropped a dog off. This isn’t Blockbuster movie rentals.

I can understand why the process to adopt a child is ridiculously long as far as dealing with lawyers and sometimes other countries and all the hoops and hurdles. We are talking about a person here. But when it comes to a dog? Really, how much worse can adoptive wannabe doggy parents be comparatively? (Hoping that doesn't make me sound insensitive to dogs.)

About a year ago we filed application with the BSCA (Belgian Sheepdog Club of America) for a Rescue dog. We filled out the paperwork and then did an hour long phone interview with a volunteer from BSCA. She also talked to our vet and Vargasgirl confirming that we were up and up people. Not the type to take a dog and abandon or abuse it.

I don’t think I ever really thought anything would come of our application. We were told Rescue Belgians are few and far between because as a purebred, they are a sought after breed. They are not a common breed and people who seek out Belgians as pets most often have experience with the breed and not to mention the copious amount of money a purebred Belgian puppy costs. You know those wasteful spending reports? The ones that cite your city spending ridiculous amounts on a police dog? They aren’t that far off base given that many are Belgians.

This one is Winny. We bought her for $50 out of a box of puppies at 10 weeks old. She isn't purebred - she is 75% Groenendahl and 25% Siberian Husky - or at least that's what we were told. Her Belgian stands out big time, even people who know Belgian's don't usually pick up on her bit of Husky until told and then you can see it in her face, she doesn't have nearly such fine features of a Belgian.


We were told there are more people who want a Rescue Belgian than there ever will be dogs. Plus the fact that we requested strict screening of any potential dogs – they have to be friendly with children, other dogs and a big nearly 20 lb cat. Rescue dogs often have issues and so the likelihood of all this coming together might require an act of a higher power.

So I guess when I saw Skeeter from just outside Boise, Idaho on the BSCA webpage last week I thought she was a long shot. There for about a millisecond I told myself we have so much on our plate right now, how could we adopt another dog too? Then the whole act of a higher power thing kicked in and I knew I had to at least try.

I e-mailed hoping to get our name in the queue and was told our application must have been lost, she couldn’t find it (which was why we hadn’t received a phone call). At this point I admitted my husband what I had done and waited to have him roll his eyes at me. But he agreed that it seemed right and if we don’t jump on this now, we may not get another opportunity. It wasn’t long before they found our application and we had phone interview number two.

That was almost as long as phone interview number one.

This Saturday after swimming the coordinator for the Pacific Northwest phoned and chatted with AB. Her concern, that was not really addressed in our phone interviews, was about our dog Winny. How will Winny handle a new dog?

AB tried not to laugh, remembering that none of them has met our big soft hearted lump of a dog. They don’t see how invigorated and happy she is to meet other dogs on our walks. They don’t see that at nearly age 10, a companion would do her a world of good and may reinvigorate (we hope) our old girl. AB talked about how well Winny will do with a companion and agreed that yes, certainly she could surprise us and reject another being moving in on her turf, but it is unlikely and something we would have to deal with regarding any dog, like one of these furrballs that was born about 4 weeks ago instead - whose webpage kept beckoning me.

This one looks JUST like Winny did as a puppy.

I guess he satisfied the coordinator since our next phone call was to the foster mom in Boise.


This call I made. She told me about "Skeeter", she is crate trained, but not housetrained. (Ugh.) Was probably a malnourished backyard dog and really just needs some love. She strives to please and to interact with people – to the point of chewing through her tie to go be near people a few weeks ago. She is very intelligent, learned to sit and heel within about 30 minutes. She told us they had rejected one adoption request to ship her to the east coast and another adoption request from 100 miles away because the woman didn’t have a fence. She also then asked if we could take her this weekend?

I wasn’t quite ready for that since I was hoping to be in the new house before taking her, but since that package was presented to us and includes transporting the dog here to minimize our travel, we will take it. Dogs are resilient, I am sure moving into a new home and then into another new home in less than a week will be the least of what "Skeeter" has been through in her 15 months.

We had our home study this evening where Winny was tested at the new house with another young dog. She passed with flying colors and the home study volunteer said a few times he wasn't quite sure what he was doing there, the house was great, yard was great and Winny obviously loved companionship. Now Winny will have a sibling… or a daughter… or best friend... hopefully not nemesis.

The last bit to figure out (aside from what color of collar to buy her) is her name. One of my coworkers (who does dog rescue) insists that we change her name from "Skeeter" saying she will learn quickly her new name and the poor dog should not be known for the rest of her life as an annoying bug. I kind of agree, it would also symbolize a new start for her. “Skeeter” isn’t a name I would have picked out, but is better than some Leif has come up with so far. (Ba-doopa, Parumba and this morning found Leif very obsessed with genitalia in coming up with names… lovely.) AB and I discussed Freya this evening as an option (sticking with the Nordic theme).



Any name ideas that do not involve references to genitalia (aka four year old potty humor) would be most appreciated!

Weekend recap

This weekend was quiet. No birthday parties, no playdates, no house hunting, just us. Our house is never really quiet it seems, but every once in awhile it is really nice to just have a weekend with little planned, especially after the last few weeks.

I wrote this up and then reread it. Paragraphs of work drama that could be summarized here - 50 pages of text comprising 5 proposals submitted, three to the client I SWORE I would never work for again. That's what happens when you make declarative statements like "I will never..." they come back to bite you in the tush.

I had a photo shoot scheduled today for one of my teams. It went well and there was much whining about "man space". It isn't just men who need space. I was very cognizent of being stuffed in between Miss Pink and the post-Masters student working on my project. I eeked my way towards Miss Pink. Why is it that we Americans (since AB says it is a cultural thing) need so much space, but yet all agree that everyone packed in close together makes for better pictures? After we finished the group shot I was snagged to have my picture taken with the former deputy sector manager. It was a huge honor to stand next to him and smile for the camera. Four weeks until he starts his consulting position with my client and he takes his seat across the table from me. I miss him terribly in his former role.

My blogging mojo has taken a back seat. I am just feeling quiet and reflective. I am enjoying catching up with the people I never thought I would ever see again after high school and college. I have to learn to logoff though and not leave Facebook up. A few weeks ago Leif typed a message to Rockergirrl - thankfully she has kids and so his "e-mail" to her made perfect sense. Yesterday I came back to the computer to see a one sided chat with a long lost friend of mine from high school that I was sorry to have missed - and I still have no freaking idea what he was talking about. (Thankfully Leif didn't respond to that one... time to start thinking about internet safety?)

A lot of what is going on here is centered around houses. Our new house, our current house, what needs to be paid for, financing, how to move, when to move, rent or sell, what we need to buy (fridge and potentially washer and dryer), what we want to buy (new barstools that kids can sit on, a new TV, a set of bunk beds, another couch, hot tub... see the list started practical and very quickly plummeted off the deep end), what we want to paint (formal dining room and office), how to decorate a Star Wars room, where our daughter should sleep post-move, how many gates we need and not to mention packing logistics.

So the rest of the world revolving around us? Invisible.

Dog - poor baby. She has become "the dog". She is very happy though that I just finished reading "Call of the Wild" and have remembered that she has feelings too. (Seriously a most awesome - and short - book.) Her evening walks have become less frequent lately. And my advances to swoon her back to my side by snuggling her on the floor next to me, only to trick her with the Furminator in the other hand have not been well received.

Cat - I thought cats were supposed to be all independent like? I have the most dependent cat ever. And huge. Maybe his dependency wouldn't be such a big deal if he wasn't nearly 20 lbs. The kids aren't thrilled when he sits on their laps and his persistent lying on the keyboard while we are trying to type is just annoying. AB is thrilled though that he does tame my nighttime wiggles since he plants himself on my legs and wills me not to move.

Boy child - He is starting to bend to our will. He has a firm understanding of what exactly "talking back" is and picks the most inopportune times to exercise this new found talent. I look forward to the day when bribery doesn't rule. When we don't have to threaten to take away a privilege to get the most basic tasks accomplished. He is fully immersed in the world of the Transformers and Star Wars The Clone Wars. Despite all his annoying four and a half year old boy antics, he still is a mama's boy at heart and offers unsolicited kisses, wants me beside him for every step and is a sweetheart of a brother (most of the time).

Girl child - She is nearing two and her language explosion is a huge relief to all off us. It was quite convenient last night at dinner when she was able to sob out "tummy hurts" instead of just sobbing and screaming. Miss Skadi is karma biting me back. I remember pre-kids being annoyed with those parents whose kids hit, kicked, scratched (I would add bit in there, but we may have nailed the biting) and pulled hair like wild beasts. Why don't those parents do something? "I AM TRYING!!" I am screaming to my former self. 80% of the time she is a sweet little girl who likes dresses and clothes and snuggling with and being just like her brother. Oh and the whole being carried by whoever will carry her. She is an amazing little fish and loves her swimming lessons.

The rest of it - I am still a Top Chef addict even though this season so far seems more soap opera and less fascinating personalities on it. Back to lovin' Big Love. Then much to our surprise last week Burn Notice made a surprising return. Aside from that? AB and I have let so many tv shows go lately, we watch right at about 3 hours a week amazingly enough.

I need to get back on the treadmill in a bad way if I am going to run Bloomsday. Of course this would be made easier if my husband didn't lose the magnetic lock key. It has to be somewhere, right??

The goal for the rest of the week - more focused blog posts. I do have a couple Leif funnies - one about Broccoli Obama being our new president (did you know he can shoot carrots out of his back? Yeah I didn't either.) And another about the things in his throat that make him sick. I will try to hit those tomorrow.

"I love my doggy."

And my doggy loves me.

There's the kisses I wanted!

Wait, I didn't say you could be done kissing me!

Oooooh, sparkley!

I love my doggy and my doggy loves me.

(Winny IS a great dog. Yes, she pretty much sits and lets the kids and cat roll all over her. She's a good protector dog too.)

The poor abused dog

If it isn't one being...




Then it's the other...

And then there is this thing called "the breaking point"... where no possible good can come to an innocent bystanding dog when two beings approach the cat residing on said dog...

Lucky kitty!

Lucky has a home!

We arrived about five minutes late to pick up our kitten and the coworker couldn't throw him/her in the carrier fast enough and get us out the door! I slowed her down a little saying I wanted to make sure that one was the one we wanted. After a few minutes, and knowing I really didn't want the long haired fluffy kitty who had fallen for Leif already, we went with the second kitty showing interest, Lucky.

Leif carried the carrier on his lap on the ride home. Once home I told him we had one rule right now, he had to wait for Lucky to come out of the carrier on his/her own. No reaching in.

After about 10 minutes he got tired of waiting and decided a movie was a better option. About five minutes later Lucky sauntered out of the carrier, jumped up on the couch and walked across it and found a nice place to settle on Leif's blanket next to him.

Awww!

Lucky is a sweet tempered kitty, who so far loves Leif and me. Lucky isn't so sure about Skadi yet, and frankly, I haven't let her get close enough to test. Lucky is probably getting more used to AB after him being home much of today. But this morning he/she was leaving AB's attempts at playing to follow me around.

The one we need to work on is Winny. Winny is over the moon excited and can't wait to chase Lucky around the house, on the walls and around in circles on the ceiling. Lucky, thankfully, is holding his/her ground and not running. But there is a lot of hissing and spitting going on. Though a little less this morning than last night.

Right now the kennel is the safe haven and where Lucky is sleeping routinely.

And the new automatic litterbox? No problems at all with using it!

Wheee!