Easter foster dogs update

Our Easter celebration was great, but this post is about the fosters! Crystal and Pooh Bear (a.k.a. Poohbert) might get their own blog soon -- anything that'll help them find their home!

We've decided that Pooh Bear is actually Crystal's dog. It's our own weird little way of saying how bonded they are. It's like a sibling relationship. Crystal lets Pooh Bear clean her ears, gnaw on her paws and face, all kinds of things that other dogs couldn't get by with doing. They are really sweet together.

Pooh Bear got spayed last week, and she's spending a few more days yet in the Cone of Shame because we don't trust her not to pick at her stitches. They'll dissolve soon, though. Here's a happy little Cone of Shame shot from last night (where you can see some of the damage she and Crystal have inflicted upon the Cone):


And a pic of Crystal, taken last night, too:



For the record, here are their current standings:
- Both spayed
- Both vaccinated for rabies
- Both received their distemper/parvo booster shots (first shots were at the shelter)
- Both on HW preventive (Crystal is officially heartworm-free; no test on Poohbert yet)
- Both on flea/tick preventive
- Pooh Bear is microchipped
- Crystal is a young adult, weighing in at around 55 pounds; Pooh Bear is about 8 months old and weighed 32 pounds at her spay appointment.

Now, who has the home these dogs are supposed to be living in, and just doesn't know it yet?

Friday Five: Redo, Refresh, Restore

Over at RevGalBlogPals, Songbird writes: Please share with us five ways you redo or refresh or restore your body, your space, your blog, anything in your life that needs perking up this week.

Here we go:

1) A massage does wonders to refresh me. I have a membership at a nearby massage place, and that base fee includes one massage per month. I have three unused ones stacked up. Time to make another appointment and do a better job of giving myself that time that I've already bought.

2) The Alpha got me started on working with 10-pound hand weights this week, in preparation for this and this, which are coming up in OH HOLY CRAP, LESS THAN TWO MONTHS. I'm such a leg-oriented person, though, that in working my upper body, I've actually made myself sore in the quad and hamstring areas because of the way I compensate for the motions I'm not used to doing. Time to restore my body to a previous level of fitness. It's been a while.

3) Last year we decided to finally redo the kitchen, and we are still enjoying the results very much. This year, at a minimum, we plan to use the remaining tile from that project to re-floor our smaller bathrooms.

4) Another way I need to refresh my living space is to get these foster dogs placed in their forever homes! I have a lead on a potential home for Pooh Bear; still waiting for someone to fall in love with sweet Crystal.

5) Something that's refreshing for my mind is to do some reading that has absolutely nothing to do with church or faith! Recently, the latest issue of The Oxford American has been satisfying that need.

Hurried updates

I'm supposed to be on my way to the office already... but I had to share:

- We have been on two walks with all four dogs now. Pooh Bear is a typical puppy who has no idea what a walk is except fun! Crystal, though, seems to have been trained to heel, and to walk calmly. She shows up our dogs. It makes me wonder even more who let her go, and why.

- The two fosters have done pretty well in the back room the last couple of days. After a couple of destructive episodes, we made some modifications to their space, and it has worked well. (They get to watch PBS all day... I showed them Clifford before I left yesterday morning.)

- They are good dogs who really need forever homes. The city shelter sent out a message about an elderly dog who needs a home for 6 to 8 weeks until her owner finds a new place to live. The shelter can only keep her until Tuesday. We would love to help them out, but we have no room.

Dog Couch happenings

It's a cold and lazy day here. Not much going on with the current occupants of The Dog Couch, but I thought I'd share anyway.



These two foster dogs were kenneled together at the shelter, and they get along very well. Last night Pooh Bear, the pup, was play-chewing all over Crystal, the pit. Crystal is so patient with this fuzzy baby. It's very sweet to see, but so far they haven't let me capture their playtime on video.

Still looking for loving adoptive homes for them. Maybe -- and I do realize I'm dreaming here -- one loving home would welcome both of them together.

Stream of consciousness, business-travel style

I'm in a hotel room two states away from my husband. It's just for one night and wouldn't normally be that big of a deal... but... I left him alone with my hobby. Back home, he's outnumbered four to one. Our two dogs are fine with just one person in the house, but managing two foster dogs in addition to the regular residents... well, that's less than ideal.

A few days ago, I had it all planned out. Pooh Bear was going to go stay with someone who was thinking about adopting her. But then another decision in his life made it a bad idea to adopt a dog right now. "Oh, well," I thought. "That appointment to have Crystal spayed will include an overnight stay, so we can just do that the night I'm gone, and The Alpha will only have three dogs to wrangle instead of four."

Except that Crystal didn't stay overnight after all -- because the vet found a spay scar, which is good news that saved us some money, but which also meant she didn't need to stay overnight. So she's back home, and she's not as comfortable without me there (I think perhaps The Alpha reminds her of someone unfriendly in her past).

So, I've stranded my man with four dogs. And if I get a good night's sleep tonight, I'll just feel more guilty than I do now.

Foster dogs update

- Pooh Bear met a prospective adopter today. No clue on whether he will actually decide to give her a home. He's going to sleep on it for at least one night, which is good. And he would totally change her name, which is also good. ;-)

- Still keeping Pooh Bear and Crystal mostly separated from our dogs, even though we know that they've all been exposed to the contagious bacterial thing. Angus is showing signs of possibly needing another round of antibiotics. (Pooh Bear has improved drastically since starting antibiotics on Friday.) The other two seem to be okay... for now.

- Speaking of those other two girls, they got into a little tussle today while we were all having some backyard time. Nobody's hurt, but it's another reason to keep the Main Dogs and the Temporary Dogs apart much of the time.

- I'm back into an "I'm not sure I can do this again" phase. The trouble is, when my house is down to two dogs, that means there's room to help another one. It's not convenient, it's not easy, but it saves a life. And I know it's going to get harder to find homes for dogs once everybody I know who might want a dog has taken in one of the ones I've fostered. This is serious Crazy Dog Lady territory here.

*Sigh*

I saw something disturbing this morning.

I think I do a decent job of keeping my political preferences low on the radar. I don't hide them, but I also don't shove them in other people's faces. I don't list them on the social networking site referred to by many RevGals as Spacehook. I don't want my politics to be a barrier to relationship with those who don't share my opinions.

Which is why I found it especially disturbing that a bumper sticker reading, "Yes! I want [last name of the person inaugurated on January 20, 2009] to fail!" was on a vehicle in my church parking lot.

It's one thing to see something like that in traffic. It's in poor taste no matter where it is, and no matter who you voted for. But I saw this sticker where my community of faith gathers. That's what disappoints me. As if we don't have enough barriers to people understanding that our God is a god of love, we have a message that flat-out wishes ill on someone who is trying to do his job.

And, in my opinion, if that person fails at his or her job, the entire country fails along with him or her. So if you agree with that bumper sticker, you're also wishing for my failure and your own.

When someone I don't like is holding political office, I grumble, but I also pray for the person in leadership. The decisions they must make involve factors that I have no idea even exist. That job is difficult beyond belief.

So, am I supposed to say anything? The owner of that truck and I have a long history of seeing the world in different ways. Yet we've been members of the same church for nearly a decade now. It's seems like it's getting more difficult, though. He hasn't been coming to worship very much, and I suspect it's because he disagrees with some people in leadership. I refuse to shut myself off like that. It's a choice I make, and it's not always an easy one, but God created us to love others.

Even when others are behaving in ways that embarrass us.