Proud Pet Parent

If you were curious about how a blind dog interacts with his siblings, wonder no more.  On the left is Klunkers engaging in a playful fight with Tippy in the middle and Libby on the right.  They don’t exclude him and he doesn’t shy away from the fun just because he is relying on different senses in order to play.

Did you know that California Pizza Kitchen allows you to bring your dog to lunch if you sit outside on the patio?  Well now you know!  Polly and Fletch have been there already.  Next up will be Bates.  Polly has taken to imitating Fletch’s singing, but hers is pretty soft and not nearly as loud and shrill as his sound.  A song came on the radio at CPK that was a bit high pitched and the waitress noticed Polly was singing.  We’ve never heard her sing without Fletch singing first.  The waitress was so entertained by it that she went inside and brought out the other waiters to hear it.  We all got a good laugh out of this tiny little one singing along to the radio.

Quite simply, Prancer is a big bundle of love and happiness.  I truly have never before and never since met an individual or animal that loved life more than her.  When she was free to walk in the yard, she ran and jumped and played every minute until we did the head count to bring everyone inside.  When we took a road trip, she was the first to try to sniff out the window or get her head out the window.  When we were inside, she wanted to be in the heart of the action or cuddled up to someone.  She would cuddle next to me on the couch most nights, then root her way under my blanket.  Then it would not take long for Bella to come along and curl up next to me too, right above Prancer, with just a blanket between them.  For some reason it worked for both of them because we sat together many nights with the two ladies stacked up literally on top of each other right next to me.

Cali is one of the most confident cats you will meet.  She has been with us for 10 years now.  We have had 7 different dogs across those years that she had to get to know and trust.  She will sleep belly up in the middle of our living room floor, knowing that the dogs will not pester her.  She will cozy right up to the dogs when they are sleeping or let them cozy up to her.  When it is time to feed the dogs and give Fletch his insulin, they run to the kitchen and so does Cali.  She has her food round the clock, but when she shows up for their feeding time, she gets a treat.  She likes their food too and will share bowls with Fletch when he is eating.  I don’t know how she convinces the dogs that she is one of them, but they all adore her and let her be part of their canine club.  I love that!  It makes me proud of my kids.

 

This was Bella in our apartment complex at grad school.  She would catch the scent of something interesting and throw her nose into the air.  This is not too far from where she dug up the dead squirrel that she carried back to our apartment!

How’s this for a visual of Libby as a puppy?!  She was 2.4 pounds when she arrived.  On this day she was galloping across the living room and sunroom with her two new friends on her heels.  They chased her and subdued her into not barking.  As soon as she started running again, she would start barking and they would corner her against the couch or the wall.  Eventually, Libby caught on and learned not to bark.

This is Prancer and Klunkers.  You may have noticed by now that there are significantly fewer photos of my angel kids.  That would be because I love and prefer film to digital, so I did not get a digital camera until very late in 2005. Prancer passed away 3 weeks after I got the camera, and I was on a trip for 15 days of those 3 weeks.  There literally are 6 digital photos of her from the week after going digital.  This image is a photo of my photo taken with the film camera.  The kids deserve for me to scan their photos before I share them so that will happen soon.  This is one of the photos from their first year with us.  The rescue group adopted them as a pair and they officially said that Prancer was the seeing eye dog for Klunkers.  He didn’t actually need assistance, but he did love having a close friend.  They snuggled together like this daily.  I will have to share photos of him wrestling and fighting with the other kids too.  He didn’t sit out on the fun and games just because he couldn’t see.  They didn’t take it easy on him because he couldn’t see.  Prancer had her routine where she would greet the humans, sit with Klunkers, run around and play with toys or the other dogs, then head back to sit with her bff again.

When Cali got this as a gift, I thought it was the silliest thing.  I thought why would she use a dog bed when she has her kitty condos, the couch, every chair, every bed, etc?  Well, we’ve nicknamed her our puppy cat because she behaves like the dogs 99.999% of the time, so of course she likes this bed.  I love that it looks like she is smiling!

Most dogs have to grow into their paw size.  Polly most definitely had to grow into her ear size.  They even grew as she was growing.  They started as these huge triangles directly above a scrawny little pup face.  Then they transformed into even larger elongated ears that hung more to the side of her head.  This picture of a young Polly reminds me of a caricature from a street artist because her features are so out of proportion.  She was still very young with just a wisp of white hair under her whiskers and a tuft of white on her chest.  Now she’s got a great deal of white hair, especially for a 4 year old.  She’s always had those tiny delicate paws and legs.  This collection of dainty features adds up one strong little gal.  She is capable of doing everything she sets her heart and mind to do!

Yep, whoever made this gets it.  Great video and worth a couple of minutes to watch it.