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.)

All quiet

Tomorrow Edie and Marlie get fixed, finally. As a result, they'll be out of it for a while, so I hope Loretta gives them a break. We'll be seeing.

The other night I noticed that Loretta sometimes dozes with her eyes open. Her body twitches and her eyes roll as she dreams about one thing or another -- rawhide chews, open fields, the rancid enticements of the compost heap.

For once there's no chaos to report here. Incredible.

The rugs aren't going down yet.

Nuf said.

Hookworms:

The culprit behind Loretta's running rear. That was the vet's conclusion this afternoon. Lo's now on medication, so maybe, just maybe, we'll be able to lay down our rugs again soon.

The vet, upon inspecting Lo's teeth, suggested that she's no older than one year. That means that she and the kittens (as well as their geographically departed friend Rufus) all came into the world at about the same time. 2008 was a good year for pets.

This morning Lo romped in the dog park with a fellow black lab. They ran and reared up together like wild horses. It was beautiful. Lo is good at making fast friends, canine and human alike. (Felines are another matter, although Edie and Marlie get ballsier by the day. We suspect that their friendship with Rufus -- even more energetic than Lo, but much, much smaller -- gave them early and valuable insights into the canine mind. If the kitts really wanted to be proactive about their relationship with Lo, they would probably just give her a good swipe on the snout.)

Lo's new extended family

Loretta received her first piece of mail the other day: a box of goodies from her aunt and uncle in New Jersey. Among them was a stuffed animal (a snake with leopard spots and a squeaking head) that Loretta can't get enough of. Whenever we hear it squeak, we can rest assured that Loretta isn't up to no good -- that she isn't harassing the kittens, isn't chewing through speaker cables, isn't ******* [see previous post].

We're not sure how old she is. Her trainer at the SPCA said 11 months; the vet said two years. We suspect that she's on the younger end, which gives me hope of a bright future.

(I should use quotes around "trainer." Trained to do what, I ask. Trained to sit? No. To stay? No. To practice the art of dung shui? Ah, right, now I get it.)

Rice

To get Loretta's bowels back in working order -- to firm up the "output" -- we've put her on a 24-hour fast. She's already broken it, of course, which is entirely my fault: I haven't yet internalized that a litter box is a dog's version of TGI Friday's. (Coprophilia, thy name is Loretta.) Tomorrow we'll start feeding her rice, which seems to be the universally recommended diet for a dog with the runs. For now, though, I should make sure that we have a healthy supply of paper towels and Nature's Miracle.

Someday my entries here won't be about poop.

Loretta got out of her crate again today while we were both away from the apartment. After confirming that she indeed does not possess opposable thumbs, we concluded simply that the crate is a piece of crap. She was able to remove the door from its hinges and exit, which further allowed her to move her bowels over my new pair of swim trunks. It was the first, and last, time those trunks ever got wet.

This large, loud beast also appears to be an inconvenience for the kittens. Loretta makes overtures to play with them by barking and flailing her front paws in the air; when the kittens tire of this, they hiss at her, whereupon Lo slinks away with a whimper.

For my part, I'm beginning to miss the kittens, who lately have been less inclined to collapse on my chest now that they have to be on high alert.

Thankfully, though, kittens always have something better to do than hang out with us, so I'm sure they're doing just fine. Me, I'm not so sure.

Day Four

We've renamed Tippy after Loretta Lynn (she IS from the south). She now sleeps with us in the bedroom! No accidents yet (well, one close call at 5 a.m. this morning). Our secret: exercise, exercise, exercise. Tire her out so much that she can't help but sleep it off (thank you, Lettriste, for the tip).

Good dog sits on command!
Bad dog hasn't quite mastered "stay"
Good dog lays quietly in her crate (when we're at home)
Bad dog broke out of her crate (while we were gone)
Good dog good with other dogs
Bad dog skittish around some people
Good dog good with the kitties!
Bad dog ate their shit

Next challenge: separation anxiety (Loretta's) and ensuing panic (mine)

adoption day

After browsing petfinder for weeks, we made a date for the SPCA dog adoption fair. It was a sweltering, ninety-degree day. If ever there was a perfect example of "the anxiety of choice," this was it. There must have been almost a hundred dogs to peruse, all of them excited and overwhelmed to be out of confinement.

Armed with our list of sociability tests, we circled the cages. We chose a few dogs to meet, walked them, and asked the handlers as many questions as we could think of. With the number of dogs looking for homes, I had to wonder how much our choice really mattered. We could have taken home any of them!

We chose Tippy, a small black lab mix, named for the spot of black on the tip of her pink tongue. She was very licky and sweet, eager but not rambunctious. When we filled out the paperwork, her handlers cried.

She hopped right into the hot back seat of the car and we drove home with two-hundred dollars worth of dog supplies. Our adventures into dogland had begun.