Polly's Better

Polly was "off" the other day.  I knew she must not be feeling well because she didn't even get up when I fixed her dinner.  She just lay in her bed and if she moved at all, she moved to the second bed, one step from the one she was in.  She didn't even pee on her Polly Pad in the living room.

We were both very worried about her (Polly?  Not interested in food?) but there was nothing we could do for her but worry.  I worked in my office and she hid in her bed under my desk.

 

By the time I went to sleep, she still hadn't moved. Her food was still sitting in her bowl.

In the middle of the night, I got up to use the bathroom and I left the door open rather than turn on a light.  Suddenly I looked down and there was Polly, tail wagging.  When I got up I decided to show her that her dinner was waiting for her...but it turned out her bowl was empty.  The normal Polly was back.

Walt said it was a good thing that Polly didn't die because if she had, we'd be stuck with 200 Polly pads that he just bought at Costco.

---

Tom and family are in New York.  They have taken the girls to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.  I am jealous!  There have been lots of great photos.  The first came in a text from Tom.  He says "Can you tell what she is watching?"

 

Obviousy United Airlines has a great selection of movies.  Laurel posted an even better picture on Facebook.

 

I don't know if the girls have seen the movie before, but I'm happy they seem to be enjoying it on the plane.

In New York they had their first subway ride.

 

And are in a hotel with a great view of Times Square

 

It will be fun to see what things they do and see in NewYork (and if they avoid rain and/or snow this weekend!) and to hear about the play, which is a 2-parter.  They see the first half in the morning, then take a break for lunch and go back for the second half.

 
As I said...I am jealous!

Territorial Conflicts

Polly and I have been having a battle for about 4 or 5 years now.  I'm not sure which of us is winning.

When we moved my other to Atria, she had two braided rugs that her niece had made for her.  She was using them in her bedroom, but because of the trip-and-fall risk, Atria does not allow throw rugs.  Makes sense.  So I brought them here.

I used one on my recliner.  Since the dogs frequently sleep there, I figured it would help keep the upholstery clean.  And it looked nice, too.

Polly is the one who sleeps most in my chair and she can't stand to sleep anywhere that she can't make a bed, so if she is sleeping there, and I go tell her to get down because it's my turn to sit down, this is what the chair looks like.  Always.

I have tried to put a blanket in the chair for her to make a bed out of, but she digs under them to get to the rug.

She lies there all day long just staring at the chair and if I get up...for anything...she's out of her dog bed and headed for the recliner  Lately she has taken to standing at the chair looking at it and at me, trying to figure out if I'm going to be gone long enough for her to make a bed in the rug.

The other day she was sound asleep in the other recliner when I went to the bathroom, and when I got back from the bathroom, she was curled up in the bed she had made in my chair again.

Notice the look of guilt on her face.  Grrr.

Polly has a very firm sense of schedule.  I'm surprised that lately she has been letting me sleep in the morning.  If she does not know I'm awake, she will be quiet for an hour or more. I usually get the iPad and check my e-mail, but if I make the mistake of closing it, which closes with a teeny tiny click sound which she can hear even if she is asleep in the living room.  As soon as she hears the click, she is running down the hall to my chair and barking because it's time to eat NOW.  Walt never has to wonder if I'm awake.  All he has to do is wait for Polly to bark.

Yesterday I faked her out and figured out how to check my mail on the tablet, which has no cover and which makes no noise when I shut it down.  That was a triumph until she figured it out and if I v-e-r-y quietly put the tablet on the shelf where I keep it, she was back at the chair barking.  (Tomorrow, I will just leave the tablet in my lap and not try to put it away.  See if she can figure THAT out!)

So I eventually get up and feed and water the dogs, and leave the back door open for them.  About 2 hours later she's in here in my office looking at me expectantly.  I have yet to figure out why.  But I dutifully get up to make sure that she has water and that the back door is open.  When I've done that, she'll go back to the recliner, make her bed and sleep again.

At 4 pm. she tries to tell me it's time to eat.  From then until I finally feed them (I try to hold out until 6), whenever I walk anywhere she is leaping happily in the air thinking that the only reason I ever get up at all during the day is to give her something to eat.

Polly is one reason why I won't be taking foster dogs any more.  We have such a hard and fast schedule (written by Polly) that it would be disruptive to everyone to introduce a new dog into the mix!)

(As for Lizzie, she just lies on the couch and ignores us until it's mealtime and then she joins Polly in the happy dance of dinner.)

Bedtime Stories

I have finally decided that Polly needs a bedtime story before she settles down for the night.  It's the only explanation I can come up with for her weird behavior, which has been going on for years now.  I think I've written about the behavior before, but it took until yesterday to define it.

Both dogs settle down after their dinner, which is around 7 p.m.  Somewhere between 9 and 10, Polly will go outside.  Now, during the day, they either wander around the yard, or they rush at one of the fences to bark at dogs, people, or ghosts.  Maybe a rodent that we can't see.  When the mailman comes, they rush the front fence to bark at him. They bark and bark and bark together until they either get bored or we call them in.

But this late evening thing is all Polly.  She stands on the patio and barks a fairly quiet bark.  One bark.  Then about 5-10 seconds later she barks another.  She keeps this up for maybe ten minutes.  If you look at her, she doesn't seem to be barking at anything.  Lizzie ignores her, but once in awhile Polly's bark changes ever so slightly and Lizzie goes outside to check, but then comes back in again.

I finally decided it is the doggie version of "Goodnight Moon."  

On the concrete patio
There was a table
And a rickety fence
And a dog who -
Stands in defense
And there were three little plants covered with ants
And two little plots
With a pair of pots
And a little tool house
And a little mouse
And a puddle, some slush and a tree with a thrush
And a grumpy old grandpa who was yelling "hush"

Goodnight patio,
Goodnight table,
Goodnight fence.
Goodnight dog standing defense
Goodnight plants
Goodnight ants,
Goodnight plots
Goodnight pots
Goodnight house
Goodnight mouse
Goodnight tree
Goodnight thrush
Goodnight grandpa yelling "hush."
Goodnight stars
Goodnight air
Goodnight noises everywhere

Once she has said goodnight to everything in the world, then she comes in, goes into the living room and goes to sleep for the night.

She has probably followed this routine for at least the last couple of years.

---

I had my taste buds tickled this afternoon, a satisfaction years in the making.

The one thing I have missed about my parents has been my father's potato salad.  He created his own when I was still a kid and I've never tasted any like it.  For one thing, the potatoes aren't chunks, but are sliced very thin.  For another,there is no mustard in it and he used sweet pickles instead of dill.

I was always his taster, lettng him know whether he had all the blends right.

I've never actually made it myself because it's loaded with onions and Walt doesn't like onions.  It also involved a ot of slicing and I could never get the potatoes to slice thin enough.

I eat other people's potato salad and they're OK -- some I actually like, but nothing has ever equaled my father's.  My mother did ok with it, but tended to over-salt it.

When I got the new mandolin slicer I suddenly thought I could use that to slice the potatoes...and I could make an individual serving that I wouldn't have to force on Walt because of all the onions.

Today he went to San Francisco to the symphony and I had the afternoon home alone with no car (so no temptation to go anywhere) and I decided to try it.  

It worked!  It needs tweaking.  The potatoes were cooked a little too long and the parsley wasn't diced fine enough, but otherwise, it was that taste I'd been missing.

It's such a simple salad -- just the potatoes, onions, sweet pickles, parsley, hard boiled egg and mayonnaise mixed with pickle juice.  I might try pickle relish next time.  But it was pretty close to what I've been missing for so long! i also satisfied my taste buds and probably won't have a craving for it for awhile now.  At least now I know I can make it, if I want it.

The Changeling

How many times in the past two years have I looked at Polly's little head and wondered what is going on in there.  She is rarely relaxed.  She never gives that cute little doggie smile that you see in commercials and YouTube videos. She is the most vigilant dog I have ever seen.  She can go from what appears to be sound asleep to full attack mode, if Lizzie looks at her wrong, in a fraction of a second.

What happened to this little girl in her first year and a half to leave her like this? To make her so afraid of everything, even after 2+ years in this home where she has no threats whatsoever.

Lately things have been changing between us.  Once again, who knows what goes on in that little head.  She seems to be starting to prefer Walt to me, at least during the daytime and evening.  She is so excited when she sees him and she often sits in his lap rather than mine at night when we are watching TV.   But then something will spook her and she'll run over to my chair.

For the first year we had her, she would instantly leap into the chair with me..  Now she sits and whines and whines until I "invite" her up (that was all her idea, not mine!).  But instead of one big leap into the chair, she may try 5, 10 or even 20 times before that leap that does it.  She doesn't seem to be in pain or have any stiffness and when she does leap, it is effortless, but it's as if she's afraid something is going to hurt her if she does and she has to screw up her courage to make the full commitment to the leap.

Her favorite place also used to be curled into a ball under my armpit.  Now she doesn't seem comfortable there and often will curl up on the footrest instead, on the chair, but not with me as was so important to her for so long.

(and then, of course, just because I mentioned this change in habit to Walt, she decided to sleep next to me again!)

She still starts the night out by sleeping on my side while I am in sleeping position, but more often than not, now, she jumps down after 5-10 minutes and goes to sleep in a chair instead.  I am starting to feel rejected!

I would love for her to be a normal little dog, but I guess I have to accept that she never is going to be and just enjoy her for the odd creature that she is.

Tomorrow is Cousins Day, after more than six months.  Bob is finally "settled" enough in the rest home that Peach feels she can take a day off, and desperately needs it.  I am bringing dinner and tried to figure out the best way to make it easier on my mother -- just cooking dinner so she doesn't have to isn't enough any more.  You can't leave leftovers, and I feel guilty using too many pots and utensils because she won't let anybody clean up for her and I hate watching her struggle through her back pain trying to clean up my mess. 

So I finally decided on Trader Joe's frozen quiches (which I like very much).  Each is the right size for one person, they just go in the oven on a cookie sheet, which doesn't need to be washed because they don't dirty it, so clean up will be very easy.  To go with it, I got an all-in-one packaged spinach salad which again, will only dirty one bowl to mix it all in.  I think this meal may be a winner...it doesn't give me the chance to show off with some fancy dish I've created, but I will feel much better about it after the meal is over!

But anyway, tomorrow's entry will be posted late, after we return from Cousins Day (and it will be later than usual because I have to drive to the far side of Sacramento to take Peach home because she doesn't do freeways.)

The Boss

I love the morning love-in. Since Polly has settled in around here, days have taken on a real strong pattern and it's not surprising that when I go out of town, Polly gets all flummoxed. The day I went to Santa Barbara last week, for example, she managed to get through the barricade Walt puts up to keep her from going upstairs and later, Walt got a midnight phone call from Mr. McCoy complaining that she was barking outside again. We thought we had the problem solved with the noise alarm, on which we had just changed the batteries. But I guess the need to bark has superceded the pain in the ear from the dog-only noise from the alarm.

We were so concerned about what would happen when Walt was gone too that we had our friend, Jessica, lock the dogs in at night after she fed them. (Bless her heart, she made a special trip over here later, so the dogs wouldn't be locked in for so long.)

But anyway, when I am home, Polly is in hog heaven. She sleeps with me and is a wonderful sleep mate. She snuggles either under my arm pit, or along my left side, with her head under the blanket, and pretty much doesn't move all night, at least as long as I can tell.

I wake up before she does and when I get out of the recliner, I leave her covered with a blanket and I come in to my office. It is Polly who wakes the other two dogs up when she's finally hungry.

She comes into my office and stands under my desk and begins to whine very softly. I look down and pet her and her little butt goes into overdrive with that wagging tail. I ask if she's hungry. She begins her whirling dervish routine. She runs around in circles, backing up all the while, as I walk into the family room and start collecting bowls.

Then she follows me into the kitchen, leaping at the back of my legs until I put the bowls down, whereupon she backs away and keeps staring at me intently while I dish dog food into the bowls and add a spoonfull of nonfat cottage cheese...the pièce de resistance.

I put the bowls down, Lizzie's first, under the water cooler. Lizzie stands out in the hall and seems confused about where she should go to eat, despite the fact that she's been eating in this spot for years. Polly's is next, next to the stove. Polly immediately dives in, eats all her cottage cheese and then races to Lizzie's bowl to eat HER cottage cheese, while Lizzie still looks a bit dazed. Last is Sheila, who gets fed in the family room. She has been sitting there quietly while all the commotion is going on in the kitchen. She stands up regally and slowly starts eating her food.

Polly, by this time, has finished her cottage cheese and Lizzie's cottage cheese and is standing not too close to Sheila's bowl, hoping she will walk away, leaving some cottage cheese behind.

When all the cottage cheese is gone all three dogs check all three bowls and somehow all the dog kibble gets eaten.

While this is going on, I sit in my chair and pretty soon, Polly comes over for some lovin'. I pet her and scratch her and tell her what a good dog she is. Lizzie, hearing what is going on, comes over for her turn and she also gets petted and scratched and told what a good dog she is. Next it's Sheila, who puts her head down and held between my legs, up against the footrest of the chair. I scratch and scratch her back. Polly now joins in, putting her front paws on Sheila's back and pretty soon Lizzie is there too, all dogs licking each other's faces and ears, and all four of us sit there until I get tired of scratching them all and get up.

They go on about their business, Polly retiring to the recliner to spend most of the day sleeping. Occasionally she comes in for a skritch or a pat on the head. If the water bowl is empty, she will whine softly.

Occasionally Polly and Lizzie, who have become best buds, go out and start barking. I stand up, start to walk to the door to call them in and before I reach the door, they both come in, docilly. I rarely have to even speak to them to get them to come in--just stand there. Sometimes I reward them for coming in when I call them, other times not (going on the intermittent reward theory of training). Sheila stays outside because her job is to guard the house; Lizzie and Polly stay locked in the house for awhile...a doggie time out.

The in and out goes on all day, with the dogs being brought in as soon as they bark, which they seem to accept without a second thought.

Along about 5 p.m., Polly comes in to my office, whining. I tell her it's too early for dinner. She goes back to sleep, returning every 20 minutes or so until I finally get up to feed them all.

I start cooking our dinner and when the timer goes off, or the microwave buzzes, Polly rushes in here to see if I hear it. If I don't get up, she barks once or twice. OK, Polly...I'll take care of it.

After dinner Polly and Lizzie have about half an hour of wrestling time, chasing each other, growling, rolling around on the floor together, and then it's time to sleep. Polly sleeps in my chair, but occasionally comes in to my office to when and let me know that she is ready to cuddle with me.

I don't know how I ever was able to take care of anything before Polly came along to run my life.

"The Talk"

We had "the talk" today...the talk everybody is supposed to have, preferably younger than mid-60s to 70s, but definitely the one while you're still breathing, the one about the money and your "wishes" and all that good stuff.

This time it was a family talk. We met Jeri, Phil, Ned and Marta at Crepeville for brunch. Phil was getting ready to get on a train to take him to the airport for his trip home to Boston. Jeri still had another couple of days to stay here. Marta was getting ready to take Ned "somewhere" for his birthday, later this week. Marta had suggested that we get together for brunch before "the talk."

After brunch, we came home and sat around the table (Marta cleared away a corner of the piled up junk--I didn't realize we were going to make this a table talk!) and Marta took charge. Smartest thing Ned ever did was to bring Marta into the family!

Having recently been through the settling of her step-father's estate and seeing how difficult it was because of the things that had not gotten done, she knew all the questions to ask and all the pokes to be made. She went down the list about where is this and where is that and what insurance did we have and what did we want for health care and burial and did we have an attorney (no).

Walt, bless him, is extremely organized and he had written down everything and put it in a folder. Me, damn me, can't remember diddily so I knew that there was "something" somewhere, but didn't remember what or where. But now everybody knows what is where and who does what. Marta is going to find out the name of her mother's attorney and we will make an appointment ASAP. We agreed Walt's sister (a bank trust officer) should be the executor of our estate and if she can't, Tom. Marta and Ned, because they are here and not 3,000 miles away will have our medical power of attorney. Jeri will play Amazing Grace at my funeral. ;)

When "the talk" was finished, everybody felt MUCH more comfortable about our inevitable demise and there was nothing left to do but move furniture. With Ned and Phil here, Walt took advantage and had them move some furniture into the garage. We are another step closer to being able to paint the living room before tearing up the carpet and putting in the new Pergo.

After Jeri got home from taking Phil to the train station, Walt showed her our China pictures and then we went to a Thai restaurant for dinner. This place has the best curried duck, with almost more duck than we had at our Peking Duck dinner, and all for less than $10...plus Walt eats there a lot, so they toss in a free dessert for us.

The restaurant is next door to the theatre, so we went and saw The Help. I'm not sure it is one that Jeri or Walt would have chosen, but it was that or Conan the Barbarian, I told them. I liked it very much because I had read the book. They said they sorta liked it, but I don't think they were as taken with it as I was.

When we came home, Jeri was determined to make friends with Polly. We learned that Polly, who is basically a slut, can be bought for treats.

Of course all bets were off nce she'd taken the treat, and when Jeri got out of the chair and stood up, forget it! But for one brief moment, Polly allowed herself to be manipulated for food.

Yeah--I can relate to that.

Insidious Takeover

It happened so suddenly I wasn't even aware that it was happening.

But isn't that the way the best takeovers happen? I was reading today about Google-plus and what a great thing it's going to be. I don't know much about it, but apparently it can track you everywhere so that all of your friends know where you are at every minute of the day.

Pardon me, but how is that different from "Big Brother is Watching You"? except that our latter day overlords have learned how to do it with our permission and to make us think that it's all a game and we love it.

Of COURSE I want to let the world know when I'm not at home, when I'm depositing money in my bank, when I am having a good time at a bar somewhere. It's FUN!

Well, I'm not here to cast aspersions on Google-plus, about which, as I said, I know almost nothing.

No, I'm here to talk about my own complicity in my own insidious takeover. How I let it all happen and even seemed to enjoy it.

Meet my overlord:

9 lbs 13-1/2 lbs of pure tyrant. And it's not just me. It's the other big 30 and 40 lbs dogs too! We're all under her tiny paw.

It's been so insidious, I'm not even sure when Polly decided that she was going to take over here. Obviously it was sometime before I uttered those infamous words: "I want to adopt her." Oh she was smart, that little minx. She wrapped me around her little dewclaw and hooked me in. She knew a good thing when she saw it and she wasn't going to let it slip away.

But once she realized that she didn't have to spend every Saturday in a cage while strangers tried to decide if she was something they wanted to bring home, she started molding this into the home she wanted it to be. To whip us all into shape.

Since we got home from China, I haven't gone out all that much so more often than not, I'm home 24/7 and I've been able to see the pattern of Polly's day.

She doesn't wake me up, but she stands on the floor near wherever I happen to be sleeping and starts whining softly. If my eyelids flutter (she hears them, I'm sure), she whines louder. When I decide I'd better get up, as my feet are hitting the floor, she's announcing to the other dogs that 'She's up! She's awake! Come eat!!!" She barks and barks and runs back and forth from the family room to the living room until Sheila and Lizzie come staggering out looking for a cup of coffee.

There is no ignoring Polly from opening of eyes to presenting of the dog food. I've tried, but it's just senseless. She will make my life miserable if I do (occasionally I must go to the bathroom first and she stands outside of the door barking. You can almost see her tapping her paw impatiently. "How DARE you go into the room before you feed me!")

Once breakfast is over, the dogs go outside. They will be outside for about an hour, perhaps and then Polly, for some reason only she knows, starts barking again. She's not barking at anything, just barking. Bark........bark.......bark..... It's not the Lizzie barking at the back fence which is more barkbarkbarkbark, or Sheila's letting the neighborhood know she is up and awake Woof...woof...woof. What happens when the dogs bark is that I bring them in and lock the dog door to avoid the inevitable phone call from Mr. McCoy.

It's almost that Polly wants to be locked in because by the time I get out of my office, she is standing on the patio, with her head cocked to one side checking to see if I am going to make them come in (they have a dog door, but this would involve opening the patio door, making sure they all come in, and then locking the door so they can't get out again.)

So I let them in and the big dogs head for the living room and Polly for my recliner and me to my office. They are now locked in the house. About two hours later, Polly comes into my office and starts whining. She wants to go out. So I let them out and we do it all over again.

If they are out of water, she stands in at my feet and whines.

If the timer on the stove goes off, she stands outside my office door and barks.

When I leave the house the dogs get a treat, but if I leave the house to, say, get the paper or the mail, Polly stands inside incredulous that I actually went out the front door without the involvement of a treat. When I return they also get a treat and I swear she starts barking for it when the car is half a block away. By the time the front door opens she has worked herself into a frenzy and is making whirling dervish circles backing away from me and into the kitchen.

When 5 p.m. rolls around, she starts with the whining, but since I don't feed them until about 7, I ignore her. She tries being pathetic, but I don't feed them until after Jeopardy, but when Jeopardy is over, she leaps up, starts whirling in circles and barking for the other dogs to join her for dinner.

After dinner we do the patio-dog door-bark-locked inside game again and then around 11 p.m. she sits at my feet and whines again, which means I'm supposed to shut down the computer and come join her in the recliner.

I'm very obedient. I have learned to understand several words in dog and I generally get praise for being such a good mistress. If she had thumbs, she might even give me a treat now and then. We are much happier now that Polly has assumed control and keeps us on the straight and narrow.

(Please don't tell Cesar Milan)

No More Love-Ins

I used to love it in the mornings, especially after the nights that I slept on the couch. I slept with dogs around me. Lizzie often lay on the table behind the couch, Sheila always lay down on the floor next to me, and usually whatever foster dog we had would be sleeping on my feet (or, in the case of the chihuahuas, somewhere on my body).

When morning came and the dogs realized I was awake, Sheila would lick my nose and I would sit up. Both Sheila and Lizzie would get on the couch with me and take turns rubbing me with their heads or rolling over on their backs for tummy rubs. The fosters would get into the act too and it was the one time of the day when all three (or more) of the dogs were really friends. They licked each other, shared my lap or whatever part of my body they could get to and I almost didn't want to get up because it was just all so very sweet. Never was able to get it on film because that would mean getting up to get a camera. But I loved those morning love-ins.

And then Polly arrived.

Polly is the most loving little dog, as I've said before. But she is also the Napoleon of the house, the tiny tyrant.

At night I get into the recliner and she curls in my armpit, her head across my chest. She gives a big sigh, then lifts her head, looks at me, licks me on the nose, gives another sigh and goes to sleep. Sometimes she gets up in the middle of the night, but always comes back to curl up under the blanket with me.

She will sleep as long as I do, but the second she knows I'm awake, she wants breakfast NOW.

I reach down to lower the footrest of the recliner and the other dogs come in from the living room (because they sleep on the couch now) for the morning love-in. Polly flies off the recliner in full attack mode. I'm not sure if it's an actual attack mode or if she's just happy to see them, but it looks more like "that's MY person and don't you touch her." She leaps and jumps up on them, barking constantly, and then gets into the OTHER recliner and barks at them from there. In the meantime, Sheila and Lizzie are ignoring her and putting their heads against my legs and I'm trying to give them a lot of body stroking and wish them a good morning.

Once I actually put my feet on the ground, there is to be NO time for the bathroom, or checking e-mail or brewing coffee, I have to be in breakfast mode NOW. Polly barks and barks and barks, and now Sheila has realized that Polly has trained me well, so she is in breakfast mode too and she begins to bark. Lizzie doesn't bark, but she begins leaping at my legs (as does Polly) and leaps and leaps and leaps over and over again until I have actually touched a food dish and put it on the counter.

Sheila sits at her spot over by the back door, waiting, often leaving big gollops of drool on the floor as she imagines the delictable food morcels that will come (if you enjoy kibble mixed with cottage cheese).

It all finally calms down when I get the food bowls on the floor and everybody is eating for those 15 seconds that it takes them to devour the food. Then peace reigns again until dinner time, when she comes to let me know, in no uncertain terms, that it is time for dinner and she wants her dinner NOW.

I was cooking dinner tonight -- stuffed pork chops -- and Polly was standing at my feet hoping I would drop something edible (she loves living with a klutz)

I watched her tail going a mile a minute and I thought about that little girl who came to us back in January of last year, a skinny thing ("feed her whatever you can get her to eat," was Ashley's first order to me). I remember how she was so afraid she would hide if anybody with 2 or 4 legs was near her.

I tried to imagine what it must have been like for her being alone on the streets. We have no idea how long. She was obviously starving, because she was so skinny, and she obviously had her share of encounters, probably both with 2- and 4-legged creatures. I know that some of her quirks are because of her breed, but she obviously has been affected by her time on the street, and who knows what before that.

I'm glad she has found a forever home. I'm glad it's us, because I would always have worried that she might be mistreated again.

But I do miss the morning love-ins.

Poor Polly

Something is wrong with Polly.

She looks miserable and since I got up this morning she has hardly moved. She has not eaten, she moved from the recliner to the dog bed in the living room sometime around noon and then sometime in the afternoon moved from the big dog bed to the little dog bed which is behind the couch.

Mid-morning I got into the recliner with her in my lap and when I finally got up abouat an hour later, she kept moving onto my legs so I couldn't get up, as if she wanted me to stay with her. My arm was also very wet, and her fur was very wet. I don't know if she drooled or if she licked herself (I didn't feel her licking me).

Through the day I had many exchanges with Ashley and ultimately I tried to get her an appointment with the vet, who had no slots left for today, but who has a slot tomorrow morning. If she's not better tomorrow, I will take her.

This all started a couple of days ago. Polly leaps into my lap whenever I start to bend my knees, but suddenly she didn't seem to be able to get into my lap and I would have to pick her up.

That only lasted a day and by yesterday she was jumping into my lap (and Walt's lap) again.

She is VERY food oriented and food aware. She and the other two always sit at my feet when I have breakfast because if I'm having toast, I give each one of them a piece of toast. They all know that Sheila gets the first one, Lizzie gets the second one and Polly gets the third. They are very polite.

Yesterday during breafast, Polly didn't join the others. She sat in Walt's chair, peeked around and whined. She eventually jumped down and came to get her toast, but this morning she didn't even look interested. I took the toast to her in my chair and she sniffed at it and finally ate it, but without enthusiasm.

She always sleeps with me, whether in the recliner or on the couch. Last night I started in the recliner and she was having trouble finding a place to sleep and ultimately jumped down. When I went to the couch, she didn't jump up on me, but at some point I moved back to the recliner and in the morning she was in my lap, but it is unheard of for her not to sleep on top of me when I'm on the couch.

She is always immediately at my feet if she hears me putting on my shoes, because that means I'm going out and that means she'll get a treat. But today she didn't move from the bed, which was OK because I was only going outside into the driveway to take a picture of a rose which had amazingly decided to bloom in what is still pretty much the middle of winter.

She didn't look up when I left and she didn't look up when I returned.

So there's something wrong with this little girl, but I don't know what. If she were a child, I'd think she had the flu because she just kind of has that look about her...that "just go away and leave me alone" sort of look.

I'm hoping she will be back to her old self tomorrow, but if not, I'm hoping the vet can find out what's wrong with her. Of course, she will freak out having to be handled by a stranger, so that isn't going to help her either!

Guess Who We Saw Today

Yes, that is Max, the teeny puppy I used to be able to hold in one hand.

I had to go to Trader Joe's this afternoon and Walt suggested we stop by Petco and see the puppies.

It's hard to think of these mooses as "babies" any more! I couldn't believe how big they were.

I'm not sure if Laverne recognized me, but Patty definitely did. Which makes sense since she was the last to wean, and the one who spent the most time with me. She wagged her tail a lot and licked me and then when I backed up and moved off to the left to let others get up front at the fence to look at them, she kept moving down to the left so she could keep her eyes on me and try to climb up the fence, just like she always did when she lived here.

Max was his usual blasé self.

Even when he woke up and we petted him, his attitude was "ho-hum...who are you again?" But then that was how he behaved when he was here too. Excitement is not in Max's vocabulary.

(Max and Patty)

While we were re-visiting the puppies, we also had some official business to take care of;

Yes, it's official. She's ours. I noticed wryly that her immunizations expired a week ago, so our first job with her is to take her to the vet and spend lots of money to get her up to date. But since apparently after you foster a dog for a year, the SPCA will waive the adoption fee, it's not so bad.

I sure would like to know what it's like to be a dog, with that sensitive nose. Lizzie has always "taken inventory" of wherever we've been when we get home sniffing and sniffing and sniffing our clothes, but my god, she followed me around the house and sat next to me for about 20 minutes after we got hom from Petco, trying to sort out all the smells!

Having "The Other Talk" Again

In October, I wrote that Walt and I had had "the talk" and that, despite everybody's suggestions to the contrary, we were not going to adopt Polly.

Wellllll.....

Now we haven't actually filled out the paperwork yet and Walt hasn't actually said "OK" yet, but I have finally admitted that I want to adopt her.

As I told Kim, from the SPCA, I have grown to love the little pain in the ass. And now that I am looking at entries that I wrote a year ago when she first got here, I am remembering how scared she was and how badly she reacted to any change in her routine, and how nice it was when she finally decided to trust me...and how rewarding it was to watch her finally let that little tail wag a mile a minute when she sees Walt.

I remember how I had to lock her in a cage to feed her because she was so terrified of the other dogs that she wouldn't eat, and how funny it is to see that she now bosses them around.

She still shakes when she's unsure of something. It could be something as innocent as my reaching out for her in a way she finds threatening, or my starting to put a leash on her.

I know she's happy here and I know she feels secure here. Each night as we settle into the recliner, with her tucked firmly into my armpit, her head resting on my chest, looking up at me, licking me on the nose and giving a sigh before she goes to sleep, or going to the couch, lying down and having her instantly take her place somewhere between my waist and halfway up my side (she only weighs 8 lbs, so I hardly notice her), where she sleeps until I get up, I think about how difficult it will be for me to give her to someone new and how she's going to feel going to a strange new home.

I think about how she's still not housebroken and wonder how it would be for her to have someone start being strict with her about that.

I thought about this every day for the past month and I finally told Walt I want to adopt her. He didn't say no. (He also didn't say yes.) Each day I'm letting myself think about her as having found her forever home and trying not to be irritated about her little irritating quirks. I didn't take her to Petco this week.

If anybody ever told me I would want to adopt a chihuahua, I would have told them they were nuts.

I also told Kim that I'm taking a break from adopting. I keep saying this is the longest time we've gone without a foster dog (obviously I don't consider Polly a foster dog any more). Sheila and Lizzie are absolutely delighted.

Sheila had stopped interacting with me throughout the day. She just kept to herself, staying at her post all day, guarding the house from mailmen, bikers, high school students and dog walkers.

Lizzie was Lizzie, but once we got rid of the puppies and didn't bring any new dogs into the house, things underwent an amazing change.

Suddenly mealtime became a ritual again. Where Sheila rarely showed up for mealtime, but would eat at some point throughout the day, now she's back at her food bowl spot, jumping up and down excitedly as she waits for me to fill it.

She has actually brought toys for us to play with with her. We can't remember the last time she did that.

She and Lizzie are wrestling with each other again and chasing each other up and down the hall. She she seems to have stopped chewing on her backside.

As for Polly, the scared little skin and bones dog who wouldn't eat when any other dog was around her, who spent her first weeks in my chair peeking around the corner at me, trembling is now the queen bee. She sits on my lap while the others are wrestling and when she thinks they are getting too rough, she leaps down, barking and separates them. If either of them wanted to they could pick her up and throw her over their shoulders, but they just separate and go off on their way again.

I dunno. It just feels right. Jeri told me at Christmas time that I was going to adopt Polly and that Polly was meant to be our dog ("C'mon, Mom...you know she's your dog..."). I adamantly said that I absolutely was not going to adopt her.

Jeri was obviously right.

Poor Polly

There's something wrong with Polly and I don't know what it is.

(This is actually a photo I took awhile ago. I didn't want to add to whatever is going on with her by taking a new picture today. But this is pretty much what she's looked like this afternoon).

Polly has been acting strange for several days. Possibly it began when the puppies arrived. I've noticed that she has been sleeping in the living room rather than with me for the past several days. I kind of missed having her with me, but in a way thought that maybe this was a good sign; maybe it would help when/if someone showed interest in adopting her, if she was beginning to wean herself away from me.

In the last two days I've noticed that she has been trembling more than usual. I noticed something wrong especially when I'm sitting at the kitchen table eating. The dogs always cluster around me begging for food.

But in the last couple of days, Polly has not joined with them and instead has stayed on the recliner, obviously wanting to be at my feet, and whining because she's not. Her behavior has been weird, not like the Polly I've known for the past 11 months, but it didn't start worrying me until today.

I had gone to Woodland to deliver my two Samaritan's Purse boxes. When I drove into the driveway coming home, I didn't hear Polly's high pitched excited bark, which she usually barks. Instead I heard what sounded like the puppies, yipping frantically because they were hungry.

Only it wasn't the puppies. It was Polly. The puppies were sound asleep. Walt had been upstairs and he came downstairs and followed me into the kitchen, holding Polly, who was shaking all over. I immediately went and got into my chair and put her in my lap. She frantically snuggled into her usual position in my armpit and just shook and shook and shook. I hugged her until she finally stopped shaking. But at some point she moved and let out a yelp. This puppy was in pain.

I was afraid to touch her because I didn't want to hurt her. I couldn't see anything obvious wrong with her. Instead I just sat there cuddling her until she seemed comfortable again.

I got up to start dinner, periodically coming back to the recliner, where I would sit at the edge rather than try to pick Polly up and move her. At one point I tried to check her back legs to see if there was, perhaps, an injury. She rolled over on her back and spread her legs as if giving me permission to check her out. I didn't see anything, so I tried feeling around her abdomen and I reached a spot where she jerked and licked my hand. I don't know if she was just licking me or if I had hit a painful spot.

I left her, to go and eat dinner and she stayed in the chair, shaking. After dinner she moved to the side of the chair so I could get into it and then cuddled under my arm and shook for awhile until she finally calmed down.

(Someone on Facebook said the nicest thing when I posted something about my concern for her. "I hope you find out what's wrong soon. Polly has became such a dear to all of us." Polly has fans! I'm verklempt)

I don't know what's wrong with her. I don't know if it's my imagination. I don't know if there is something inside her that is bothering her. I've checked with the SPCA people. My main worry is that tomorrow is Cousins Day, so I'm not going to be here to check on her, and Walt will be at work part of the day.

Everybody is on alert and we'll be watching her as much as we can and hoping that she will be acting more normal in the morning. (She did eat peanutbutter tonight, even though she turned up her nose at a treat.)

As for the other ill person in my life, my mother's doctor called to say that she does, in fact, have fluid in her lungs so she is starting her on a diuretic and wants her to have more blood drawn next week. We offered to cancel cousins day, but she's been looking forward to it for too long, so we are going to keep the date and hope to tie her to a chair to prevent her from spending the day waiting on us, instead of letting us wait on her.

The next journal entry will, of course, be posted late.

So...?

Continuing the saga, the puppies and I left my mother's house around 9:30. She was looking exhausted and coughing a lot and just wanted to go to bed. She admitted to feeling achy as well. She wouldn't go to bed as long as I was there, so I wrapped up all the poopy puppy towels and got out of there as quickly as I could.

It was really almost funny arriving home. Ever since my bike accident in 2003, my knee has been "funny." It hates to be bent for long periods. Driving in the car usually doesn't bother it because it's my left knee and I don't need it for the gas pedal, but as I went to get out of the car, I had sharp pains in my knee so that it was difficult to walk. I was trying to get through Walt and two dogs at the front door to the bathroom, since that was a pressing need as well.

Walt answered the door bent over. Part of his bike broke while he was riding it the day before (no danger to him, but the bike wouldn't work) so that he had to carry it two blocks to the bike shop and twisted his back so he was having a hard time getting around too.

Having just left my mother looking like death warmed over, I was beginning to think that everybody was falling apart around me.

Shiloh and Polly were not at home. They had gone to training classes and their handlers had taken them to Petco afterwards, so we didn't have to immediately get into the car to get the dogs to Petco.

I spent the next couple of hours getting yesterday's journal entry written, after which we went to pick up the dogs (I no longer think of going to Petco to "find out if either of them has been adopted." I think they are just there at Petco for window dressing. They'll be with us forever.)

The two dogs were asleep in a cage and as we were about halfway down the sidewalk from them, Polly's head came up and she cocked it to the side quizzically. Then her head came up farther and her tail tentatively wagged and by the time we'd reached the cage, both she and Shiloh had furiously wagging tails and were climbing the sides of the enclosure to get out.

And no, nobody had expressed interest in them.

We got home from Petco and I took a nap to prepare me to go and see "The Owl and the Pussycat" in Sacramento that night.

Polly is being very weird lately. She trembles and cringes when she looks at me and she has stopped sleeping with me at night the last few nights. She started out sleeping with me during my nap, but got down soon after getting up. I don't know how much of this is because of my spending so much time with the puppies and how much is because of a couple of incidents which have happened lately. She went to jump up on the recliner with me just at the time when I was moving one of my feet and accidentally kicked her in the face. Then yesterday we took the two little guys for a walk around the block and she got too close to my foot and was kicked yet again. But even before that, the whole the we were walking she was walking in kind of a half-cringe position, hyper alert, and looking around furtively the whole time. I don't know what is going on with her and I am worried about her.

As for the puppies, I can't believe how quickly they are changing. They arrived here Monday night and on Tuesday at each feeding they, collectively, took 2 oz of formula. By Thursday they were collectively taking 4 oz of formula a feeding, and yesterday and today they went through eight ounces of formula per feeding. They are growing so fast it seems like you can watch them get bigger and it seems that hourly they are becoming more mature. Still no eyes or ears opened, but they are no longer crawling around their cage slowly, but walking around confidently, climbing "mount Mama" (the teddy bear) and letting me know LOUDLY that they want to be fed NOW.

I think this is the fastest maturing set of puppies we've had.

We don't know their story or their parentage. Someone at the post office found them in a box outside the door and the best guess at their breed is Australian Shepherd/pit bull. But the way they are growing, I would guess that they may end up at the large end of both of those breeds. Their three sisters (who have been named Greta, Mona and Sadie) seem to be growing quickly too, as their moms wrote, "Our puppies are still in a laundry basket but only for one more day as they are rapidly outgrowing it!!"

How It Went

No. Polly didn't get adopted. But that's not to say that this woman who is interested in her won't be adopting her ultimately.

We woke up after a nice night of cuddling together and I wondered if this would be my last chance to sleep with Polly safely curled up under my arm.

The dogs were particularly cute this morning, chasing each other back and forth down the hall, and even playing with Lizzie, who sometimes likes to play and other times just wants to be left alone.

I could feel that I had already started making the "separation" process, starting to hold Polly at arm's length emotionally. It's a thing I do with dogs I come to love that I know I have to give up. We "talked" about how she might be going to a new home. She didn't believe me.

When it came time, I got the dogs into their leashes, which Shiloh just loves because he loves dragging Polly around by hers.

I got the two dogs into the car and drove to Petco, Polly sitting in my lap and Shiloh whining because he wanted to too.

Kim had asked me to bring Polly around 12:30, because that's when the woman who was interested in her would be coming, so we got there at 12:30 and learned that the woman was running an hour late. I decided to come back home again, but someone had parked too close to my car and I couldn't open the driver's side door, so I just sat at Petco and read, trying to keep out of sight of the dogs, since they whined and tried to climb out of their cages when they saw me.

Finally the woman arrived and Kim suggested that we go off away from the craziness of the adoption area and see how the two of them did together.

Polly was her usual reticent self, and just pressed her body close to mine whenever the woman reached out to pet her. I suggested she get a treat, since Polly was so food oriented, so she did. I credit Angela, the trainer who worked with Polly for such a long time just to get her to approach her and take food out of her hand for the fact that Polly had no hesitation about checking the woman's hand for food.

I liked the way she worked with Polly and liked even better her understanding of Polly's fears and what it would take to overcome them.

Polly even sort of, warily, let the woman touch her. Briefly.

And Polly went off with her on a leash, after initially looking back at me and pulling to get to me. At some point something clicked in my head and I could see Polly living with this woman, which made me feel very good.

When they returned, Polly hopped up next to me and pressed her body into mine again. The woman and I talked. She wants to bring one of her other dogs to meet Polly next week and, if that goes well, she is going out of town on business and wouldn't be able to actually adopt her until November 1, but she filled out the paperwork to get the ball rolling.

So we have another week to wait while the woman thinks about it and then brings the rest of her family into the decision making. But I am cautiously optimistic and feel good that I can envision this as being something that will work and something I will feel comfortable about.

It's all about the best for Polly and I'm hoping this will be it.

Modified Rapture

Walt and I went out to see a play tonight (oddly enough) and as we pulled into the driveway there was the familiar high pitched, demanding yapping at the front door.

I opened the door and stepped inside and, as she always does, Polly was there scolding me for leaving and demanding she get "I'm home" her treat now!

I went into the kitchen and got treats for everyone. Polly danced on her hind legs until it was her turn and then snatched the treat from my hand and quickly looked at Shiloh to see if maybe she could steal a bit of his treat too. Polly is nothing if not food-obsessed.

This is a scene that is repeated every time I leave the house and then return. I roll my eyes when we come up the driveway and I hear her yapping (and I hope she hasn't been doing it outside while I've been gone!), I sigh in resignation as Polly leaps at the back of my legs with each step all the way down the hall, and I let out an "oh...Polly!" as she continues to bark while I fumble with the container that has the dog treats.

But tonight was different. There was a bittersweet overtone to it all, for, you see, Polly may finally have a forever home awaiting her tomorrow.

It's kind of an "I've heard this one before" in my head right now, but I have been told that someone with another very nervous chihuhua (and a third, larger dog) has expressed interest in this little girl.

When I read the news, my first reaction was a clutching in my stomach and tears coming to my eyes. Polly has been here for >10 months now, we are inseparable (at least in her mind) and I love how she curls in my armpit when I settle down to go to sleep. Now that Buttercup is gone, she and Shiloh have become BFFs again and they were do cute today, chasing each other up and down the hallway. There are wonderful things about this little dog, especially how much she seems to love me.

But then I remembered the irate phone call from the cranky neighbor when we returned from Washington, complaining about Polly's barking. I think about the angry yapping when I come home. I think about the nails constantly pawing at the back of my knees whenever I walk anywhere, the whining at the bathroom door when I take 3 minutes to myself. And I think that maybe it will be nice to be without her for awhile.

I also think back on "the special ones" that have brought tears to my eyes when I had to turn them over to forever homes and realize that they are better off, I am better off, and the whole reason I do this is to help these little guys find homes of their own, not to collect all the ones that tug at my heart strings.

So I've become philosophical about it all--if it's meant to be, her new forever home will be waiting for her at Petco tomorrow and we will take a deep breath and turn her over to a person who will have to spend a lot of time bonding with her. And if this isn't to be her forever home, she will come back to our house and we will wait again.

If we're really lucky, this person will fall in love with Shiloh too. He really has the better personality anyway. But let's not hope for miracles.

I'm thinking that maybe we'll take a little break from fostering, after these two guys go, until the next batch of orphaned puppies, who need bottle feeding, come along. I don't know how I could resist another batch of bottle-feeding puppies.

But we've been doing this fostering pretty much non-stop for about five years now and it would be nice to take a little break and let Sheila and Lizzie know that they really are top dogs around here and aren't going to be sent away anywhere.

First, however, we have to see how this business with Polly goes. I'm crossing my fingers--and I haven't decided if I'm crossing them, hoping she finds a home finally, or that she doesn't find a home finally!!

The OTHER "Talk"

We kind of had the "other" talk last night. It's something I've been thinking about a lot.

Polly has been here now for more than ten months. There have been no nibbles on her for months. She is so settled here. She is so happy here. Jeri says "you know you're going to adopt her, Mom."

We didn't plan to have the talk. The dogs were playing around the dinner table and we were laughing at how cute they all were and it just came out. The thought had occurred to Walt and me at the same time.

And no, we are not going to adopt Polly. Both of us love her, sort of, but neither of us wants to adopt her.

Every time she is behaving so beautifully and I'm thinking wistfully that it would be such a good thing for her and so much easier for everybody else if we just adopted her, she does those things that drive me crazy--mostly the barking--and it reminds me of why I don't want to adopt her.

I know that if I'm gone a long time and there is a message n the answering machine it will be from the cranky neighbor who always calls about her barking. Even if there weren't any other reasons, her barking alone would be the deal breaker.

But there are other reasons why I don't want to live the rest of her life with her. She's terribly bossy. The dogs get treats when we come home. It's the thing that keeps them all from running out when the door is opened. The second we pull into the driveway she begins her complaining bark her 'feed me NOW' bark and leaps at me all the while I'm walking to the kitchen, growling and snapping at the other dogs until they all get their treat. I think about dealing with that for the rest of her life and I know I don't want to adopt her.

She's still not completely housebroken, though she goes outside more than she used to. I kid myself that when we get the Pergo in the living room it will be better, because she doesn't pee on the Pergo in the rest of the house. But maybe it won't.

She is OK with the other dogs, and occasionally plays with them, but mostly she wants to be a one person dog in a house with no other dogs. She is bonded to me and she doesn't want to share me with anybody, though she grudgingly does. Very grudgingly.

She must be with me all. the. time. Only when I'm working in my office will she be away from me because she'd rather sleep in the recliner than on the floor at my feet (Shiloh and Buttercup would rather be on the floor at my feet). Sometimes I just like to sit down and be alone, you know? If I try to read a book in the recliner, she continually licks my hand because I'm supposed to be petting her, she thinks.

And then there is her brand new trick--jumping onto the kitchen table, a trick she learned from Shiloh, I think. In 10 months she's never done this before, but I found her the other day in mid-leap from table to the floor, looking very guilty (not unlike when Walt found the kids mid-leap from the bunk beds to the double bed when we were staying at the house at Lake Tahoe!). This morning she took a bottle of the Flagyl that Cindy had given me yesterday and I found the container open (it was closed and on the table). The lids are kid-proof, but not dog proof. Fortunately, after a momentary panic, while I shooed all the puppies away, no pills were missing, but I hate to think what might have happened if I had been out of the house.

She can stay here as a foster for as long as necessary, but I have to believe that there is some special someone out there who needs a dog like Polly as badly as Polly needs a person like me.

I remember the dog Slingshot that we fostered briefly our first year of doing this. He was an older lab mix and nobody wanted to adopt an older big dog, He was in his second foster home for months. But eventually an old guy came looking for an old dog that could go walking with him and a marriage was made in heaven.

I hang on to the belief that that "perfect" person for Polly is out there and that if we can just keep her long enough, s/he will show up one day.

But no, we are not going to adopt her.

(We may end up fostering her until she dies, of course!)

The Great Polly Mystery

I woke up this morning to a Polly mystery.

Last night, the air was cold, so for the first time in a long time, I closed the back door, which is normally left open so the dogs can get out during the night, since I have blocked off the dog door, to keep Polly in. But Shiloh's cage is right by the door and I thought maybe the cool breeze was uncomfortable for him, so I decided to try a night with the door closed.

I went to sleep on the couch in the living room. Polly jumped up and settled herself in on my back, like always, but she was trembling like a tree in a hurricane. She eventually got down and went somewhere else.

At the same time, Shiloh started whining and yapping and I realized I wasn't going to get any sleep in the living room, so I got up and moved to the recliner, taking Shiloh out of the cage and letting him sleep in my lap.

Polly stayed in the living room, which was kind of unusual for her.

Now to backtrack a bit, there was an "incident" in the evening. I am not 100% of which big dog was involved, but based on Polly's reaction today, I've decided it was probably Lizzie. It only lasted the briefest of seconds, a mere eyeblink. On the other side of Walt's chair, where I couldn't see what was happening, there was a very loud growl-bark from the big dog and a very loud yelp-bark from Polly. Nothing more happened and the evening progressed uneventfully.

After we all went to sleep, I was awakened by the sound of Polly kind of yelping and whining at the same time. She was on the dog bed in the family room. Shiloh was in my lap and the big dogs were asleep in the living room. I called her over and she came, slowly, but wouldn't jump up on the chair, so I picked her up. She settled in under my armpit, like always, but was still trembling. Over time, the trembling slowed and then stopped and we all went to sleep.

When I woke up, Polly was not in my lap. She wasn't on the dog bed. She wasn't in Walt's chair (the 3 places where she was most likely to be). When I got up and started moving around, the big dogs came in from the living room, but there was no Polly.

I went all around the house calling her, but no answer. On any other night, I would have suspected she was outside somewhere, but with the door closed, there was no way for her to get out of the house, so she had to be here. I began to have visions of her lying dead somewhere, because I couldn't even hear her whining. I began to panic.

I got a flashlight and went back over all the spaces I'd looked before--in my office, in the closet in the family room, behind the treadmill, in the bathroom and laundry room (whose doors were slightly ajar--maybe she got in and couldn't get out?). But no Polly.

I finally found her, curled up in a ball on a small dog bed that matched her fur color (which was why it was difficult to see her in the dark) behind the couch. She was trembling and didn't get up when I talked to her, but I picked her up and brought her into the family room and put her on my lap. She seemed OK. No signs of anything bad, just the trembling.

I talked to Ashley, who thought maybe she had been hurt on her brief encounter with Lizzie and said she'd check back with me later to see how she was doing.

After awhile the trembling stopped, periodically, but she'd start again for no rhyme or reason. She would eat and occasionally would get up and go outside, but she seemed very subdued. She didn't take off gleefully down the hall chasing the big dogs when they went to attack something outside the window.

I conferred with Ashley in the late morning and she said that Polly might have bruising from whatever happened between her and Lizzie and suggested I give her a bit of Shiloh's pain medicine, which I did.

She seems better, but still...odd. She won't come toward me if Lizzie is in the room, and will just stand far away from me and keep looking at Lizzie. If Lizzie's not here, she will come close, but not jump up. I have to pick her up.

At one point during the morning I thought maybe I'd discovered a new way of toning muscles. Relax in a recliner and put one trembling dog on each leg--the SPCA version of the old vibrating belt.

Polly gets so freaked so easily, an un-freaked so un-easily that I'm wondering how long it's going to take her to get back to where she was before whatever happened yesterday set her off again.

Dog Days of Summer

Shiloh is back home again.

He went up to UCD a few days ago for them to re-evaluate his leg and decide whether to do surgery. The decision was yes, do surgery. He was actually at UCD for several days, arriving home yesterday, with instructions that he is to have strict cage rest for six weeks. Yikes! Puppy in cage constantly for 6 weeks. And he has to wear the collar for 10-14 days to keep him from biting at his stitches, which he is literally itching to do!

He can go outside on a leash to pee, but that's all. Yesterday didn't seem to go too badly. He slept a lot and whined a little. But this morning he is feeling better, so is less happy at sitting in the cage all day long.

We've come to a compromise that he's willing to live with.

Polly is happy about the compromise.

Since Polly is happiest with 23 hours of lap time a day, she thinks this is just about the best thing since doggie beef jerky. As for me, I've watched The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which came from Netflix this week, and most of the things I've recorded on DVD. If I'm going to sit in a chair for the next six weeks, I may have to take up soap operas.

Actually, Ashley is looking into having one of the vet school students foster Shiloh, which would be nice because they have the expertise (and experience of putting up with crying puppies in cages!) But if a vet student foster home can't be found, I'm fine with keeping him here.

I took him outside this afternoon to pee and instead he flopped down in the grass and went to sleep in the sun. I figured the sun exposure on his stitches, briefly, might be a good thing, so I just got a chair, sat down and watched him sleep.

As for Miss Polly, her weekly ordeal is over again. She trembled all the way to Petco and licked me happily all the way home again. Ashley says she's getting better being at Petco and doesn't hide all the time any more. She also lets other people touch her, which is a very good thing.

Then Ashley sprang a surprise on me. She is thinking of having another SPCA volunteer, who is a behaviorist, take Polly to her house and foster her and work with her on overcoming her shyness. I was surprised at how my stomach did somersaults when she said that. Someone ELSE foster my Polly? It was at that moment that I realized how sad I'm going to be when she leaves here. She's been here nearly 9 months--it will be 9 months in a week, longer than any other foster we've had. In my heart of hearts, I know I don't want to adopt her and that she needs her own home. But it will be sad to turn her over to someone else. I love this little girl.

Ashley says if I want to keep her until they find a home, that's OK too. I told her that what I wanted was whatever was going to be best for Polly, and that I would leave that decision up to her (Ashley). So we'll see what happens.

My Fair Polly

Any day now I'm going to be able to say "By George, I think she's got it!"

Valerie, who has the patience of Job, is making definite progress with Polly. After only three weeks, Polly will cautiously let her touch her, briefly. She has figured out that when Valerie holds a treat in her hand and raises it above her (Polly's) head, she won't get the treat until her body resembles something of a sit position. What she hasn't figured out is that the word "sit" goes along with that.

I watched Valerie work on "sit" for half an hour today. "Sit," she says, waits, then raises treat and Polly gives a slight squat. "Sit," she says again, waits, then raises treat. Over and over again for about 10 minutes. Then things change. "Sit," she says, and she turns her head away from Polly. There is no treat offered. Polly cocks her head, looks at Valerie, looks at the treat bag, look at Valerie's hand then whines. Valerie continues not to look at her. Polly whines again. Then Polly steps back and growls. Then she moves forward and whines again. Valerie eventually gives her the treat after she has assumed the quasi-sit position. It's such a funny thing. You can tell there is some thinking going on in that little head, but she hasn't quite made the connection that "sit" is that thing you do when treats are lifted over your head.

It's the doggie version of Eliza Doolittle endlessly repeating "the rine in Spine stize minely in the pline" while Higgins patiently orders "again."

Any day now, something is going to click. Polly is going to figure it all out and then we may dance around the family room at the triumph so many weeks in coming!

As for the other little guys, they are just so much fun to watch. Roly poly bodies lumbering down the hall chasing after the big guys, or wrestling with each other on the dog bed, or settling on my lap with Polly and Emmy. Emmy has become such a great dog mom, watching out for them and licking them and snuggling up with them when they sleep. I love this picture of Bitsy's ear flopping over Emmy's nose while they sleep.

This morning I thought they were going to explode. I hadn't left food out for them overnight, though they had eaten dinner. When I put out food in the morning they ate all of their food and all of Polly's. Not surprisingly, they took good naps after breakfast!

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I've found lots of ways to communicate with our granddaughter from 400 miles away. JibJab Sendables are great fun and Bri loves dancing, so I've made a couple of those which show Walt and me dancing (very silly). And I simply couldn't wait to make the home movie that is the Video of the Day, which many, who have followed the "spider debate" over the years will understand. I am posting it publically against my better judgement, briefly (the link will be gone tomorrow because though I am a fool, there is a limit to my folly!)

I have several other ideas that I want to try, but will probably put all on hold until we get back from our vacation to Russia next month.

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I was supposed to review (I thought) a show tonight, but it turns out this was preview night and opening night isn't for a week, so with the evening free, we finally watched the end of 24. How many holes can Jack get in his body without it slowing him down? But I was pleased with the end. And I was happy with how Lost ended. And the right dancer won Dancing with the Stars (and I have given away no spoilers to people who haven't seen any of those shows yet!)

Now I just have about half a dozen other season finales to watch before I'm finally caught up.