Photo-age
Took the girls for one last walk in Washington Park before Dad and Keith pick up Dolly. The weather here today is just phenomenally beautiful; not too hot and just enough of a breeze to keep you comfortable.
Anyway, thought I’d play a bit of picture posting catch-up. These were mostly all taken during my six-weeks of no Internet via my BlackBerry . . . which seems to take dark shots even when the flash goes off.
This is one of my favorites of the bunch and for some reason it saved as a super small image. Still, I love this shot of her using her duckie as a pillow; she’s so cute sometimes.
Yara likes to take up all the space ever by my desk. (I believe this was taken the day after I accidentally rolled over her ear with my desk chair because she was in just such a spot.)
Not sure what was so interesting outside the window, but she sat there for hours.
Have I mentioned yet that one of my coworkers felt Yara needed a bed under my desk? Much to my own protesting, she brought in one a few weeks ago. Though, I have to admit it seems Yara’s lost most of her interest in it and I’ll be bringing one of her throw blankets this week. Still, it was a nice gesture.
This was from earlier this week. Yara was refusing to eat, so I was bringing kibble in to work and leaving it under my desk to try and get something in her stomach. This just cracked me up when I saw it and I had to snap a shot.
Dolly Sitting
My dad comes back from Amsterdam sometime today and he’ll be picking Dolly up on his way home. This last week’s been fun, but I can’t say I’ll be sorry to see her go; if only because I could use a good night’s sleep free of sound-barrier-breaking snoring. I think Yara was pretty stressed out having her here, too, which I feel very bad about.
But, as you can see above, they do get along well enough. Yara finally got over her need to take every toy from Dolly and I found them both many times contentedly chewing bones next to each other. The bed sharing thing is really cute. Most of the time they go to bed on separate beds (usually the other dog’s bed) and at some point during the night one of them squishes her way onto a different bed. This past night was the first time I caught them both in Yara’s bed.
I’d figured the biggest problems we’d have would be feeding and walking. Meal times seemed to get increasingly annoying as Dolly started working up more courage around Yara. She’d continually sneak into the kitchen, though thankfully she never tried to steal Yara’s food. I was surprised that Yara didn’t growl at her one time this whole week, especially when Dolly was stalking her dinner. Instead, walks were the biggest pain. Both dogs ALWAYS wanted to go out whenever I’d pick up a leash. Even if she’d been out already to relieve. Yara was exceptionally annoying with her bouncing around and stuff. I’ve been taking her out second each time because of just this, hoping that she’ll calm down by the time she gets to go out. I don’t think she’s really gotten the clue as it generally takes us ten minutes to get out the door when I come back because I have to keep working with her to not drag me out the door when I open it.
One morning, I didn’t leave the door properly closed when I took Dolly out and Yara squished her way through it. I didn’t even realize, until I subconsciously cued into the fact that there were a lot of extra footsteps. Yara was heeling completely in step between Dolly and us. When I stopped, she ran off ahead of us and parked her rear at the elevator. She’s really such a character sometimes.
Double Dog Duty
Today is my father’s 50th birthday and to celebrate he’s taken a trip to Amsterdam. Which means that I’m left dog-sitting for Dolly. This is actually the second time I’ve watched her since retiring her, but this time is a bit more complicated given that I now have Yara. And while both dogs have gotten on reasonably well, there are still a few logistics that I was a bit wary of. The least of which being how I would walk two rather large dogs.
Yesterday was a test in my own patience and sanity. Both dogs were pretty wild at first — feeding off one another’s excitement and stress. And once they calmed down, they didn’t really seem too happy about the living arrangements:
For the most part they’re getting along fine enough. Yara took possession of the loan toy that Dolly had with her, carrying it around wherever she went. Dolly took this in stride and soon worked up the courage to really explore the apartment and easily found a toy of Yara’s to take for herself. She played with it for a good ten minutes before deciding that chewing it to bits while Yara looked on would be way more fun. Not soon after that she found Yara’s stockpile of bones and busied herself with sneakily trying to take each of them. She made a big pile on Yara’s bed and then tried to chew ALL of them at once! Yara seemed to think this was unacceptable, but just looked on helplessly. So, I took a bone each and filled them with treats and gave each girl one . . . two hours later I took this photo:
The only real fiasco we’ve had has been trying to get walks in. Neither dog wants to be left in the apartment while the other goes out and Yara especially is not doing well with this. She got so worked up the first time I clipped a leash on Dolly that she had an accident right there on the spot, which freaked her out even more I think.1 And when I finally did take her out, she stood around like she didn’t quite understand the concept of relieving herself. Not to mention, the elevator was broken for most of yesterday — I truly thought Dolly was going to die of a heart attack from having to walk up and down the four flights of stairs. When we’d come back inside and were walking back up, she quite insistently wanted to go through the second floor door. I’m not sure if that was merely because the doors all look the same or she really didn’t want to walk up the rest of the stairs. Either way she was breathing quite heavy when we got back to my apartment!
Oh, well. Hopefully the weather clears up and I can take them both to the park or something.
1. Other than being sick a few times, she’s never had an accident in the house before.
Spring at Last!
After what seemed like the longest March ever, we’re finally having some very pleasant signs of Spring. Yara and I walked home from work today because it was really far too nice to not have a nice leisurely stroll. It only took us about thirty minutes to walk the eight blocks . . . and we took a detour for a few blocks to stroll passed the park. I’ve really been trying to work with her on sniffing distractions. She’s quite focused when we’re working, but if she’s idle (i.e. sitting in a crowded elevator) she’ll take the opportunity to stuff her nose up the nearest person’s bum. It’s rather frustrating, but at the end of the day she is a dog and I’m somewhat resigned to the fact that this could well be a constant battle with her.
On a totally different note, I’ve come to the conclusion that my dog is desperately in love with my boss. I mean, seriously enamored of him and I’ve no clear idea why. She’s always been very friendly with anyone who’s given her a moment’s attention, but she just adores him beyond all reason. It’d be funny if she weren’t being such a handful whenever he was around; instead, it’s quite unnerving, what with all the whining and jumping around and being crazy. Mike joked last Friday, when she was being particularly loud and silly in his office whilst I tried to head off home, that he’d have to call her over the weekend because she was obviously going to miss him immensely.
Anyway, I’ve had more than my fill of being at a computer for the day. Not to mention, I’m thinking a rousing romp in the park might do Yara good, perhaps she can burn off yet more puppy energy.
What?!
Good grief! Drop off the Internet for a month and Time Warner goes and tries to buy your favorite fansite! I’m decidedly not thrilled about this possible acquisition of TheOneRing.net and I’m very curious what the TORn founders have to say on it all.