Nicki Flunks "placement"

I'm not going to write an entry on abortion, but I want everyone...everyone...especially those who kinda sorta agree with McCain's cavalier air quotes around "health of the mother" and who smirked as he dismissed Obama's stance for that particular qualification in late term abortions, to go and read this entry. the first hand account of someone who had one of those late term abortions McCain seeks to abolish--the reason for it and her emotions about it.

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OK. On to something a little less emotional.

We just got home from a play in Sacramento, and I have to admit I'm not feeling too well. The tummy is a bit uncertain and I'm going to go sit and watch Saturday Night Live and hope that I don't spend the rest of the evening hunched over a porcelain bowl somewhere.

However, a little PS on our sweet little puppy.

Today I took her up to the Farmers Market, where she was going to spend the morning and then the SPCA would take her to Petco for placement and I would pick her up at 3:30 in the afternoon.

Around noon, Ashley called to ask if I could come and get her. She said that Nicki was too upset and she didn't want her to have to go through all the confusion of Petco too.

Unfortunately, Walt had gone off to Woodland to work a table for a volunteer organization he's agreed to join the board of, so I didn't have a car, but I called him and found that he hadn't left town yet. He agreed to go over to the Farmers Market and get her.

A few minutes later, he was back with Nicki in his arms. I took her out of his arms and the puppy actually seemed to grab me with her paws, like you'd expect a kitten to do. She buried her head in my chest. She has never done that. In fact, she doesn't really like to be picked up much. My heart just went out to her.

I sat down and she kept her head down and her paws clutching me and she lay there on my chest, breathing deeply for a good 15-20 minutes. She didn't sleep. I couldn't see her face, but Walt said her eyes were opened. Every once in awhile she'd lift her head and look around with this dazed look in her eyes as if to say "am I really OK now?"

The phone finally rang and I had to move her, but then I put her back on my chest again and eventually she started "coming to" again and within half an hour she was her old self.

I wrote and let Ashley know how things had gone when Nicki got home. She is trying to decide what to do about the puppy, but has decided not to have her come to Petco any more, at least not for now.

One thought Ashley has is to send her to the Rolling Dog Ranch Animal Sanctuary in Montana. This is a wonderful place which takes in dogs with special problems and works with them until they can be adopted. People who adopt animals from Rolling Dog understand that they may come with special needs, and are prepared to deal with them.

My fear for Nicki is that because of her "autism," she is going to be hard to train because she doesn't make eye contact and doesn't really pay attention to anything said to her. If she makes eye contact or responds, it's generally accidentally. This is going to make her difficult to train unless someone is very patient.

For now Nicki's placement is put on hold. Her bio and photo are on the Petfinder.com web site, but she won't go to Petco.

She'll have her neurological assessment next month and we might get lucky and the perfect family just drop into our laps and all will go well, but the thing Ashley doesn't want is for someone to adopt this cute little puppy and then bring back a gangly adolescent because they are so frustrated with the inability to train her.

And now I'm going to go get into the recliner and hope that my dinner will stay down until it gets digested.