Tuesday, 12/4 Well, it's been a while. There've been a lot of comings and goings since I last updated here. Louie the greyhound arrived in June, and was adopted less than 3 weeks later. Raggs the English Setter mix was adopted on the same day. It's always a happy thing to see them going home for good, but it sure makes the house seem empty when they go all at once! (In Raggs' case, though I really liked him, I was glad to have him go - he was the "noisiest" dog I've ever met on a psychic energy level. His brain just whirled all the time and even when he was sleeping he was putting out a lot of psychic static. Sure was quiet after he left!)

On July 17, a skinny, stinky little 11 week old deaf English Setter puppymill rescue arrived. I named her Glenys. She had just about every parasite in the book - coccidia, giardia, roundworms, hookworms, fleas, ear mites, and an enormous umbilical hernia. A couple of weeks later, the tapes made their appearance. (One morning I went to pick up after her immediately after she'd pooped and her stools were literally covered in baby tapeworms, all raising their ugly little heads and waving at me. Gross.) Despite the horrible tummy problems, she was so sweet and loving and calm and easy going and just plain happy all the time that I fell in love with her instantly. She was a lot of work, from a housekeeping standpoint - for a month she had horrible liquid diarrhea and, because of the intestinal parasites, it needed to be cleaned up immediately and the area disinfected. During that month I'd have to get up 3-4 times a night with her, take her out, bring her back in, then go scrape up dirt and pour bleach water on the area. I had to disinfect her crate at least 3-4 times a day, and rinse her off a couple of times a day. Poor baby - it's amazing she isn't totally freaked out by baths now, she had so many of them when she was little. I formally adopted her on Labor Day weekend.

I took her to class starting in September and, after the 6 weeks of work, Glenys passed her Canine Good Citizen test the day after she was 6 months old. This is a huge accomplishment for a 6-month old puppy; it's an even bigger one for a deaf pup and I'm very, very proud of her. She's growing into a wonderful, sweet, calm, polite, affectionate dog. She's very attentive, and complies with requests immediately - I never have to ask her to do anything twice. Two weeks ago Saturday I took all 3 girls and Eubie the kitty to have their picture taken with Santa. At one point, I handed Glennie's leash to "Santa" (one of our volunteers); he made the sign for sit, and she did. He was so impressed: "Wow! She doesn't know me from Adam but I asked her to sit and she did!" She's such a good girl - she'll do what's asked of her no matter who's doing the asking. They've just got to know the signs, and many of the people who've met my dogs pick up the basic signs - sit, down, stay, no - just by watching. Anyway, Santa sat in his chair by the fireplace, I handed Eubie to him, then I placed first Penny, then Blizzard, then Glenys, signed "sit/stay", and backed out of the pic. Nobody moved and the photographer got 2 great shots. Everyone watching was very impressed at how well-behaved the girls were, and how well they "listened". The photographer said "those are the best shots I've taken all day!" (I get to pick the pics up on Sunday and I can't wait!)

A couple of weeks after Glenys arrived, another deaf puppymill rescue arrived - a 4-year old miniature Australian Shepherd named Shady Blue. She was supposed to have been one of the personal dogs of the puppymill rescuer and was supposed to have been UTD on vax and spayed, but when she arrived without paperwork and in bad shape I wondered how much of that was accurate. Shady Blue too was filthy, had coccidia, fleas, ear mites and ear infections, but the worst was the ticks. She was loaded with ticks, and I mean loaded. She arrived on Saturday afternoon and I gave her 3 baths to get the dirt and stink off. When she was dry I applied Frontline; though it's really best to apply 48-72 hours before a bath or after a bath, I wasn't going to wait to start killing those ticks! By Sunday night when the ticks were beginning to die and started loosening their hold, I held her on my lap and pulled off over 3 dozen of the ugly suckers with my tweezers, dropping them into a jar of rubbing alcohol. Monday night at the vet, we got another dozen. (I only found 2 more after that, and they were dead but still attached.)

There was quite a bit of interest in Shady Blue, but none of the potential adopters would have been a good home. One wanted to keep her outside. One had an unneutered male at home (we haven't had time to get him in to be neutered) and the dog wasn't on heartworm preventative (again, we haven't had time to take him in for the test). Heck, they didn't have time for a HW test? At the clinic I use you just walk in, tell them what you want, they take the dog in back and a tech draws the blood, you fork over \\$20, and you're out of there - literally, 5 minutes. Call the next day for results. Anyway, I was beginning to wonder if her forever home would ever find her when I got an e-mail inquiry about her in the middle of September from a single woman with a 4-year old Aussie. I was thrilled, it sounded like the perfect home and I was looking forward to placing her quickly. The next day, Shady Blue - supposedly spayed - went into heat. Oh man, was I bummed. I ended up having to keep her another month to wait until she went out of heat to have her spayed. Her new mom picked her up 3 days after the spay, and took her to her own vet for suture removal. I get an update on her on a weekly basis, and she's having a ball with her new sister. From the hell of a puppymill to the heaven of a loving home - what a long way that little dog came!

Just before Labor Day we'd gotten word on 3 "really nice" dogs in the small county animal control shelter in the county north of me. The ACO up there really cares about the animals and does her best to see that nice dogs get a second chance - she calls the Humane Society and she calls us asking us to help. We take a lot of dogs from that shelter, and often take the ones that the Humane Society won't. (They don't have a good record adopting out beagles, for example, so they won't take them. We do pretty well with beagles, so we do. They also don't take dogs that may be around for a while - older dogs, pregnant dogs, sick or injured dogs. We will.) Anyway, there were 3 dogs up there that the ACO really liked but the HS wouldn't take - a big young Lab/Pointer mix boy, a beautiful young Coonhound they thought was pregnant (she wasn't but was HW positive and has since been treated and adopted out) and an "elderly Springer mix". They were all due for euthanasia the Thursday before Labor Day but the ACO managed to find somewhere to keep them until Tuesday at 5pm. If they weren't out of there by 5, she'd be forced to euth them. One of our volunteers went up to pick up two dogs - the lab mix and the Coonhound; at 4:15 my phone rang and it was the volunteer, sobbing. "Oh God, I can't leave him (the elderly Springer mix) here to die, he's so sweet, but when I left the house my husband told me if I came home with more than 2 dogs he'd kill me. Don't you know anyone who could squeeze him in? I can pull him and transport him but I just can't take him home." She sure knows which sucker to call because I couldn't say no so when I left work I went up to meet her and get my new foster dog who I named Sport.

I took Sport straight to the vet to be checked out, and they aged him at 5-7 - not elderly at all! The white on his muzzle isn't from age, it's beagle markings, Sport's a Springer/Beagle mix. His teeth were pretty yucky so I scheduled him for a dental the following week. During the dental, the surgeon discovered a mass on the "floor" of his mouth, under his tongue, which she removed and sent out for biopsy. The biopsy results were that it was malignant melanoma, an aggressive cancer in dogs for which the only treatment is surgery and in some cases radiation, but the radiation isn't very effective in most cases and is very hard on the dog. Only 25% of dogs diagnosed with this cancer are still alive a year later; the average length of survival after diagnosis is 8 months. One of our volunteers' sister had a dog with this same cancer; 3 months after his surgery and diagnosis they had to euthanize him. I opted not to put Sport through radiation treatment but instead, I switched him to a raw diet, started him on flax seed oil and cottage cheese, milk thistle, vitamin E, and then I contacted Marina Zacharias of Natural Rearing for her help. She advised two different Chinese herbal combinations, a Natural Killer Cell stimulant, and a mixed-potency homeopathic. You wouldn't believe the difference in this dog! He was a sick, dull, flaky, lethargic little fellow when I got him but now he's active, energetic, happy, glossy, and to all outward appearances, healthy. So far, there's no recurrence of the tumor. If he can beat the short-term odds, he can beat the long-term odds, and I'm going to fight for him just as long as he wants to keep on fighting.

Katie, my Sheltie/Dobie girl, finally got adopted two weeks ago. Katie is a wonderful dog, very smart and sassy but also sweet and affectionate, and she's a little more dog than most of our potential adopters could handle. The people who come to us looking for a dog are looking for a gentle, sweet, well-mannered family companion. Katie needs a job to do - brain exercise - or she'll go looking for her own entertainment and get herself into trouble. Most of our potential adopters aren't interested in doing obedience or agility or flyball or frisbee, and something like this is a necessity for Katie. Her new mom is a young single woman who is interested in doing both agility and obedience. Katie also has to be kept on a raw diet (or a grain-free cooked diet) to avoid the recurrence of the ear infections that nearly necessitated major surgery to fix when she was a puppy. Katie's new mom doesn't have a problem with the diet and actually hunts (turkey and venison) so there will be a steady supply of fresh game for Katie's supper. Katie's a great dog and I love her. If I had the room (and the time) for her, I'd have kept her - she'll be an awesome performance dog, and she's a blast to "work". She's too high-energy for me in my present circumstances though, and three is enough. It's been awfully quiet since she left - I miss her, and so does Glenys. (Finally, last night, Glenys got desperate for a playmate and managed to engage Blizzard in a good game of chase.)

After Shady Blue left, I told the rescue group that I don't want to foster any more big dogs, dogs with lots of fur, or dogs that are going to take longer to place. I had Katie from early May until Thanksgiving. Sport is likely to be around for the duration, unless/until I can tell people "look, it's been a year and not only is he still alive he's healthy and going strong!" I want to do little dogs that I can bathe in the sink and that will probably get placed quickly. I don't want to have any more 7, 8, or 9-month long fosters. So, the week after Shady Blue left, Lafayette the 10-pound poodle and Mouse Tzi the 10-pound Shih Tzu arrived. Lafayette was only with me a week and a half - long enough to be neutered and have his dental done, and to have applications checked and a home visit done. Mouse Tzi is still with me, but there's been a lot of interest in her and I think she may be adopted on Sunday - reference checks are done, we just need to arrange a home visit. (She's a pip, and has really blossomed since she arrived. She's a 4-year old puppymill rescue who was shy and unsocialized when she arrived, but who is now housebroken, social, happy, outgoing, and has the attitude of a teeny tiny bulldog. She makes me laugh out loud at least a half a dozen times a day. I really like this little girl.) I also have 16-pound 7-year old long-haired dachshund Huey, and 6.4 pound 5-year old Maltese Twinkle. Huey went two weeks ago for his neuter/dental and they removed all his remaining teeth. (They were in horrible shape - if he yawned in the living room, I could smell it in the kitchen.) Poor little gummi boy. They also discovered he had a broken bone in his jaw which they inserted a pin into, and they removed a lump from his cheek. Despite all that, his tail exploded into a wagging frenzy when they brought him out to me at the vet's office. He's a happy, outgoing, active little fellow who'll be a wonderful companion, and he should be adopted quickly. Twinkle went in last week for her spay/dental and she lost 8 teeth. She's very bright and curious, and will someday be a happy little companion but right now she needs a little extra TLC to work through some of the neurotic behaviors she acquired in the puppymill. (She spins endlessly in circles at times, though she's gotten a bit better since she came - she runs in a 3-foot circle rather than spinning in place.)

I took Penny, Blizzard, Glenys, and Eubie the kitty to have their picture taken with Santa a few weeks ago and the picture came out well. I'm going to make my Christmas cards again this year and use that pic. The dogs were well-behaved, and Eubie had a blast socializing with all the people who wanted to pet him. He is just the most laid-back cat I've ever met in my life. He loves to cuddle, is relaxed and easy-going, not afraid of anything. And he's very, very handsome. Honestly, all the people that wouldn't adopt him because he's deaf don't have any idea what a great cat they missed out on!

The rest of the Zoobies are well. Snickers is fully grown now and is a big boy. He's got the most plush, gorgeous coat and a big, round head with perfect markings and cornflower blue eyes. He's bigger than any other cat at the Zoo except Mr. French now. And he's close to giving French a run for his money. French is such a dear - he's gone and fallen in love with yet another dog, Glenys. He comes up on the bed to cuddle with her at night, grooms her ears and face, then curls up between her chest and chin. He and Tootsieroll seem to be best buds lately too, always napping together or grooming each other. Purrnie is still my lil devil kitty but in calmer adult form, and his sister Pookah is still my sweet gentle cuddle girl. Twinkletoes, Lambchop, and Mysz are still bosom buddies, always curled up together. My sweet Fritz comes and sleeps on the right side of my head every night, while Tootsieroll sleeps above my head. (Penny's head is usually to the left of my head - no worries about cold drafts reaching my head in the winter!) If I ever decide to go with cable internet service, I'm going to set up a "bed cam" over my bed - during the day it's always full of kitties and at night the dogs and I join them. It's got to be something to see.

Sunday, 12/15 Got a new rescue girl in Friday night. She was found as a stray last Sunday and the woman who found her boarded her at a vet's office until she could legally claim her on Friday and surrender her to rescue. She's a 3-year old English Setter, and she's in pretty bad shape. She has quite a few lumps on her belly, a couple of them pretty big; my vet did a fine-needle aspiration biopsy on the Friday night and is sending the samples off for analysis so now we wait a week to find out if she has cancer. The good news is that the fluid the vet aspirated from the largest lump was "brownish and cystic-looking" so I'm hoping for a benign diagnosis. I've named her Netty, short for Cygnet. A cygnet is a baby swan, the fabled "ugly duckling". Poor Netty is an ugly duckling indeed - she's bald on her back from her shoulder blades to her butt, part of her tail's bald, and her backside is bald as well. It's not mange, but could be any number of other things - metabolic problems, flea bite dermatitis, allergies. The first thing I did was give her a good bath; she looked up at me with the sweetest look of gratitude the entire time I was shampooing/massaging - she must feel so much better being clean at last. Then I rubbed some herb-infused oil over her bare skin to moisturize and get rid of the rest of the flakes. Her poor ears are a mess so I'm treating those - she may be deaf, but I won't know for sure until we get the ears cleaned up - and I talked the vet into clipping her nails (which were almost curled under her paws). She's a very, very sweet girl, gentle and affectionate, seems to be housebroken. (She comes and gets me when she needs to go out.) If the diagnosis is cancer I'll have to euthanize her, but at least she'll have a few good weeks of love and comfort before she goes. There are pics of her here.

It snowed here Friday for the first time this year. Last year at this time we were already buried under 28" of snow. I'm glad winter's been slow in coming this year. The ground is still pretty warm so the snow melted on sidewalks and roads, but it stuck to the grass and there was still quite a bit left yesterday afternoon so I took the crew over to Chris's to romp in the snow. This was Glenys' first experience with snow, and I'm betting it was the first time Mouse and Huey have seen snow too since they came from puppymills in Missouri. Glenys had a blast zipping back and forth, running for the sheer joy of running.

After about an hour everydoggy was wet, dirty, tired, but very happy. When I picked up a case of chicken backs later in the afternoon I also got some nice big marrow bones for the dogs - the the bones and the after-effects of the exercise made for a nice quiet evening here.

With the addition of Netty, I'm short one crate. I need to keep Netty crated at night and when I'm gone. Sport is allowed loose in the house when I'm gone - he just curls up in the kneehole of my desk and sleeps all day - but he sleeps in the crate at night. It's easier that way - he gets fed in the crate just before bedtime, and I just leave him in there overnight. Friday night Sport got fed out of his crate, and I left him loose at bedtime. Tried to coax him out from under the desk, but he didn't want to move so I went to bed. Got into bed with Penny, Blizzard, Glenys (under the covers, such a nice, warm, snuggly body), the cats piled on, and I was just dropping off to sleep when I heard a distinctive beagle whine coming from the 6" wide gap from the propped-open bedroom doorway. It was Sport, wanting to come in. OK. I let him in, resettled everyone on the bed, and went to sleep.

Yesterday morning when I got up and opened the bedroom door, Penny, Blizzard and Glenys hopped off the bed and came right out. Sport lifted his head, looked at me as if to say "fergit it, go away, I ain't movin", put his head back down and closed his eyes. Fine, stay there then. I let the others out one at a time, made coffee, sat down to check my e-mail. When I finally got ready to get off my butt and get going an hour later, I went back into the bedroom to get Sport to let him out. When I walked in there he was curled up in the middle of the bed sleeping peacefully, surrounded by 10 equally peaceful sleeping cats, 4 of them with parts of their bodies (butts, backs, necks/heads) curled up against him. (He puts off a lot of heat.) Very, very sweet picture. What a dear he is! A little old man, half deaf and slow-moving, set in his ways and stubborn, but sweet and loving and gentle and easy.

I love lazy Sunday mornings. When I woke up this morning there were 4 dogs and 8 cats on the bed with me. (Some of the cats were on me.) I got to lay in bed and cuddle kitties, snuggle with dogs, and doze on and off. I probably should have been up working around the house, but I figured a couple of hours of being lazy was good for all of us.

Tuesday 12/25 - Merry Christmas! I hope Santa brought you everything you asked for.

Last week was a rough one. Netty went in Wednesday to have the largest lump removed and sent out for biopsy. Since she was under, they spayed her at the same time. She seemed pretty chipper when I picked her up - she was happy to see me, and got into the van before I could help her up. She was happy to be home, too, went straight for the water dish and had a long drink. But late in the evening she went into shock and passed away. I think there was a lot more wrong with her than we suspected, and she just couldn't handle the surgery. The vet who removed the lump said it looked like typical adenocarcinoma. Depending on what stage the cancer was in, it may have metastasized and Netty may not have had more than a few weeks. It's never easy to lose an animal even if they've only been with me a few days, and losing this one was tough. She deserved to have more time to be safe, warm, well fed, and loved. A friend sent me the following quote, and it helped me realize that maybe I did all for Netty that I could:

" The important thing to remember is not to feel you have failed because the little soul died, but that you gave her exactly what she needed along her soul's journey- a helping hand and a loving response to her situation in the moment".....Sharon Callahan

One of my "wants" for Christmas was a freezer. It's been difficult to store food for the dogs because all I've had is the small freezer in my refrigerator. I can squeeze about 35 pounds of chicken backs in there, but it leaves little room for anything else. (I haven't even had room for ice cube trays.) Because I haven't got room for both chicken backs and veggie glop, the dogs have been getting 5-6 straight meals of chicken backs, then I do veggie glop and they get 2-3 meals of veggies, then a fish meal; I'd prefer to feed a more evenly-spaced rotation of stuff, and I'd like to be able to add other types of RMB's (beef, pork, turkey, etc.). Plus, I can watch for sales and stock up when stuff is cheap. (For example, ground turkey goes on sale occasionally for $.59/pound, and it's regularly $1.09 - with a freezer, I could get 20 pounds of ground turkey at the sale price and save money. I can also grind up chicken backs - which run me $.42/pound, and use those instead of ground turkey to mix veggies with. More savings.) My sis had a freezer in her garage she wasn't using and told me I could have it and she'd bring it over on Saturday.

The room I wanted to put the freezer in is the back double-wide hallway. I'd been contemplating ripping up the carpet in there for a while - the litterboxes are in there and it's a pain vacuuming up scattered litter, and some of the unhousebroken fosters choose to eliminate near the boxes - so I figured I might as well do it now before I put the freezer in there. So Saturday morning I pulled everything out of there and removed the carpeting. The tile floor underneath was filthy - dirt that had gone down through the carpet and pad had caked and dried because of the piddles and subsequent Simple Solution poured on. It took me a couple of hours with a putty knife to remove the carpet tack strips from the perimeter of the room and scrape the dirt off the floor. I washed the floor twice with a mop and twice by hand, and it was still dirty but getting better. (Last night I used the steam vac on it and that did a great job. One more hand-washing and it should be pretty clean.) Sis delivered the freezer, I plugged it in, then went to the store to pick up my order of chicken backs. After repackaging them into plastic shoeboxes, they went into the freezer. I have a 4-day weekend next weekend, so I'll do several batches of veggie glop and freeze that too. And the next time I order chicken backs, I'll get 3 cases. That way I won't have to go way out to that store any more than once a month or so - the gas I'll save will pay for the freezer's electricity. And maybe I'll eat healthier and cheaper too, because I can prepare "family sized" dishes and casseroles and freeze the leftovers.

Santa also brought me just about everything on my list - a dremel to do dog nails with, a staple gun, a hot-glue gun, and Santa Mom got me a new camera to replace the one that was stolen in October when the van was broken into. I've really missed having a camera with a zoom lens, and now I should be able to get some good pics again. The staple gun is going to come in very handy - there are a couple of places (one inside, one outside) where telephone wire has been pulled off door frames it was tacked to, and now I can re-anchor them. The hot glue gun is going to be invaluable - something gets broken around here every week and I'm pretty handy with superglue, contact cement, and duct tape, but sometimes that just doesn't do the trick. I'd like to make some cat runs and additional scratching posts, and some agility equipment for the dogs, and both the staple gun and the hot glue gun should come in handy for those projects. I'll also be able to fix up the dog run in the yard, though that project's probably going to wait until spring.

I have a temporary foster dog, while his regular foster mom is out of town for the holidays. Scruffers is a 15-pound terrier mix - a sweet, calm, affectionate gentleman. Even the cats like him. As I look down on the floor at my feet, Sport is in the kneehole of the desk (his favorite napping spot), Penny is lying with her back across the front of the desk (blocking Sport in, but he doesn't mind - he's got his head across her back), Glenys is to the left, lying with her back up against Penny's bottom, Scruffers is curled into the right angle between Penny's back legs and Glenys's shoulders and head (her head snuggled up against his lower back), Huey the dachsie is curled up by my right foot, and Miss Mouse the Shih Tzu is curled up with her bottom against Huey's shoulder. The only canines missing are Blizzard (who's curled up in my chair in the living room) and little Twinkle the Maltese, who's in her crate where she feels safe (the door's open if she wants to come out). Pookah is in the top cradle on the cat tree, Purrnie on the middle one, Eubie in the lower cradle, and Miss Lucy Maud napping in the tunnel. Tika's on the scanner, Mysz is on top of the monitor. Everybody's napping. Hmmm...... a nap sounds like a very good idea.....

Saturday, 12/29 Ahhhh..... 4 days off with only a few obligations. And the sun's finally shining again, after 5 days of overcast and snow flurries. Feels good. It's a nice day and I should take the dogs over to Chris's to run, but I'm having a hard time getting off my butt so I might wait until Monday to do that.

I have a temporary foster again, this time an emergency situation. Someone surrendered a female Shar Pei to a high-kill, gas-chamber euthanizing county pound. She'd have been PTS in 24 hours or less, Shar Pei Rescue couldn't take her for a week or so, and there was nowhere for her to go in the interim. So she's here. I'm always the first one to condemn "breed-ism", but I've got a mental stumbling block with Shar Peis. It's silly, but I respond to "Shar Pei" the way some folks respond to "pit bull". I have to consciously fight my prejudice with this breed. And this is a very nice girl. She's polite and gentle, affectionate, submissive, and actually quite pretty. Shar Pei rescue should be able to place her easily.

I got busy with the staple gun the other day, re-attaching a phone wire around a doorway that had been pulled loose. Did a pretty good job, if I do say so myself. Except, I accidentally stapled through the wire at one point, and severed the wire inside that connects to the modem. So I had to pull it off, open the cable and splice that wire, then re-staple it down so the splice wouldn't become a kitty toy. I'm a klutz with power tools, but I'm learning. (Heck, I'm so used to doing everything with hand tools.) I'm getting really good with the dremel, and Blizzard's getting pretty cooperative with me using it on her feet. I've gotten good with the drill. I think I'll probably be able to give Penny a pretty good trim the next time I do it (gonna try to do that this weekend). It'll be a long time before I'm comfortable enough to use the power saw I bought last year, though.

There's been a very interesting progression in the cat/dog interactions here over the last several months. The cats have become very affectionate with "their" dogs, even the shy cats. I think Glenys has been some sort of catalyst for the relationships around here. She's so loving, forgiving, and just downright friendly that she's irresistable. Bless her heart, she wears herself out playing hard with Blizzard and is then very gentle with everyone else. Penny is happy that Blizzard has someone else to bestow her rough affection on so what comes her way isn't quite as bombastic. This threesome really works well together, and the energy in this house is lighter, more at ease, more harmonious. That energy has affected the cats as well. Everyone seems to be in a mood to get along, not only with each other but with the dogs too. The number of cats that will approach Blizzard with headbutts, and her restrained return of that affection is really heartwarming. She's starting to think before she does. She's learned to curb her enthusiasm to get the affection she wants from them, and she's making friends all over the place. She's still a wild child, but she's beginning to mature and I like what I see emerging. Even Tika the pariah has been allowed by the "regulars" to come sleep on the bed recently, she's happier, and that has eliminated any inter-cat spats. (Tika's always involved in whatever spats occur here. Sometimes she's the instigator, sometimes she's the victim, but she's always one of the two parties involved.) Glenys' sweet serenity has been good for everyone here.

Eubie, too, is a thread that weaves us tighter. He's the most laid-back cat I've ever met in my life. He's a big, goofy, gentle, innocent fellow who offers his heart on his sleeve to every living thing he meets. He's universally accepted and loved here, a free spirit who spreads his love around freely and without distinction.

I started training something new with the girls last night. I'm teaching them each others' names. I've worked them in a group, started off with everyone in a down, and began prefacing requests with the dog's name. I signed "Penny, stay. Blizzard, stay. Glenys, sit." Both Glenys and Blizzard popped up. Glenys got the treat, then both were both downed again. Then Blizzard stay, Glenys stay, Penny sit. Both Penny and Blizzard popped up, Penny got the treat, then back down. Finally, Penny stay, Glenys stay, Blizzard sit. This time she got the treat. It took 3 rounds, but then they were all watching me very carefully, and they began doing only what was asked when preceded by their name sign. (Huey the dachsie decided to join in - "hey, she's handing out food" - and on his own went into a down/stay just outside the curved line the girls were in, so he got rewarded too.) I can think of lots of situations calling them by name will be useful, and it'll be interesting to see what I can do with this.

Have a happy and safe New Year's Eve.

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