Grab Bag

Duncan and I went to the Canine Carnival and Mutt Strut yesterday. The weather was pretty crappy, but we still had fun. We got to meet Steve and Laura, which was great. I really hope they met the dog who will become their newest family member. We also met a couple of dog trainers that we just might start working with. I certainly got along with them, and they didn’t even seem concerned by the thought of Reyna and all her alpha bitchiness.

We left the event a bit early to do a home visit for Gus. Our foster pup will be going to his new (and, I hope, permanent) home this coming Friday. I really like the folks and I think this will be a great place for Gus (soon to be Max).

After a miserable 30 days, Reyna is finally off the antibiotics. Her leg looks a lot better, and I really hope we don’t have to go through this again anytime soon. We went for a nice long walk this afternoon, and I didn’t even have to stop and think about when she’d had her meds, when she’d had her yogurt, or if it was too warm for her (not that a high temperature was a major concern today). She did a full 4.25 miles with no sign of trouble. She doesn’t have the speed she did, but I figure in a week or so we’ll be back to the speed and distances we were doing before.

Duncan’s got a Rally trial this weekend, so he gets to take it easy. No long walks for him – with my luck, his knee would start acting up and he’d be limping his way through the course. He will, of course, being doing a bit of training this week, but not so much that he gets grumpy about it.

We had a semi-failed experiment this week. Poor Parm (the cat who lives outside in the crate because of his Inappropriate Behavior) cries a lot. I’m sure its because he wants to come back inside, but I thought some of it might also be loneliness. I decided to put his sister, Per’la, in the crate with him to see if that made him feel better. Well, the pitiful meowing stopped, but the pissed off meowing started with a vengeance. Not only was Per’la upset about being in the crate, but Parm was mad, too. Turns out Per’la booted Parm out of the kitty condo, and he was stuck sitting on top of the condo or on the crate tray, neither of which are particularly warm. So, after trying that for a couple of days, I let Per’la come back inside. She’s much happier, and even Parm’s meowing has eased off. I guess he’s happy enough by himself.