Wednesday Siesta

'Retta at the DP

Loretta *loves* the dog park. Romps like there's no tomorrow - so much so, that she suffered her first injury: a strained hip. Here she plays with one of her more submissive friends..

D-Day, Every Day

Loretta and Edie. a peaceful coexistence.

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Oliver has a temporary work assignment, which means that Lolo stays at home alone these days. We're taking turns biking home at lunchtime to take her for a midday walk. Unfortunately, when she's left alone, Loretta descends into a panic, and her butt becomes a diarrhea faucet.

I think we must have the cleanest house on the block, because we mop the floors and wash the walls every goddamn day. (Mom, the oriental rug is still pristine--we rolled up and put away our rugs weeks ago)

I've read that separation anxiety is a common problem with dogs. I guess the presence of cats isn't a comfort. A woman at the dog park offered to leave her sweet, calm pug with Loretta during the day, to see if that helps. I'm willing to try just about anything.

Some day, we will arrive home from work and our house won't smell like shit.

zen anxiety

Loretta at the beach!

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I've been reading about a Zen approach to attention-seeking behavior on Myrna Milani's blog. When doggie misbehaves, she instructs, keep your cool, or else doggie will interpret your anxiety as submission. Okay.
[deep breath]

What about night-time anxiety, Myrna? One jingle of Loretta's tags, and I'm awake, wondering if she's: a) crapping on the carpet; b) peeing on the carpet; c) chewing on my shoes (I won't even go into the more outlandish paranoiac fantasies that go through my brain). I think I need to start using earplugs.

Next challenge: reinstating the crate.

Showering with girls

Lo got her first bath from us tonight. (Technically it was a shower.) It involved a gentle stream of water, tea-tree-oil shampoo, one shampooer and one restrainer. Little restraint was needed: Lo was a very patient girl, putting up virtually no fuss. It was not the flesh-flaying bloodbath that I'd predicted.

Another first: We took her to a beach today at Bluff Point Coastal Reserve on the north shore of Long Island Sound. After fashioning an extra-long lead for her, the three of us waded into the cold waters together. Lo wouldn't go in past her knees before bolting back to shore. On first glance it looks as if we've adopted a Labrador Retriever who would be useless to the fishermen of Labrador and who retrieves jack shit (except, of course, shit itself). Next time I want Lo to go in the water, maybe I'll toss a litter-coated cat turd in there.

There are pics from the adventure, which was wonderful, despite the fact that we spent half the time there prying out seashells and crab legs from Lo's relentless jaws. Maybe my delinquent blogger-in-arms will post them sometime...?

Yesterday in the dog park Lo met a ball-obsessed black lab named Olive. Olive chased a tennis ball, and Lo chased Olive. Whether or not Lo learned anything remains to be seen.

Off leash in the DP, Lo seems pretty much uninterested in me. Lately, when I've tried to leash her back up, she's split on me. The only good thing about that is that she expends more energy. Someday she'll expend energy chasing objects that I throw, come when called and sit patiently as I leash her back up. In the meantime, I keep reminding myself that we've had her for only two weeks and two days.

Below is a pic of Lo on our couch. The doggie crack on her nose is the remnants of an erstwhile rawhide bone.

No babies for you!

The kitts returned home from their fixin' yesterday still high on anesthetic and tottering around the apartment like drunken sailors with sea legs. We kept them separate from Loretta until they came back to earth. Subsequently, the war has resumed, the kitts seeming no more inclined to her than when they still had uterus and ovaries.

Sitting here in the damp backyard with Lo at my feet, I find myself thinking of my maternal grandmother, who, when I was growing up, had a dachshund named Elkie. I don't doubt that Gramma and Lo would get along famously. She and dogs went way back: When Gramma was a young woman living in WWII-era England, she fell in love with a moneyed sort who then went off to the war. In the meantime, Gramma lived with his parents on their estate in Shrewsbury. The parents were upper-class, while she was a dancer and daughter of vaudevillians: they never got along. Gramma spent much of that time walking the garden in the company of the family dog. (I know this from her journals. Unfortunately, while she was alive, I was too young and stupid to ask her myself about her life. I was interested in history, but made the mistake of seeking it in books.)