I scream for sherbet!

Today I treated myself to a free single scoop at Baskin Robbins, courtesy of the coupon I recently received in my email inbox (I signed up for the BR Birthday Club for the sole purpose of this once-a-year freebie).

As I sat outside in the it's-early-autumn-and-finally-cooling-off-in-the-desert late afternoon sunshine nice shady area, I sent this picture text message to my mom:

Me: "Happy birthday free scoop to me! Can you tell what flavor I got?"

Her response just a few moments later: "Rainbow sherbet, what else???"

My favorite ice cream has been Rainbow Sherbet since I was a little girl. It's so yummy, and any time I get a hankering for a tasty frozen treat, the deliciously fruity combination of raspberry, orange, and pineapple is my first choice.

And to say Thank You to Baskin Robbins for my free birthday scoop (or because I neglected to exercise self-restraint, being instead in favor of self-indulgence), I bought a quart of Rainbow Sherbet to enjoy at my future leisure! Yummy, yummy, yummy!

Gotta go, Dutch

I had initially intended to let Dutchie stay with me through the weekend and into early next week (to give the owners a decent window in which to re-claim her), but she had two altercations with my cats within 24 hours of her arrival on Friday. Even though Dutchie started it by chasing after them, I decided to be nice to her and let her stay in the house during the day instead of being stuck outside or alone in the guest house (she goes bonkers and gets destructive when left alone too long); this means my kitties have been the ones stuck behind a closed door. After two days of this arrangement and seeing how unhappy my babies are, I just can't take it anymore. It's not fair to my kitties to keep a dog here who chases them and barks at them, especially when the dog is only here as a favor to her own little self! No one claiming to be Dutchie's owner has come forward since Brad and I put up the posters on Thursday, so this morning I contacted the Valley Dog Rescue group and spoke to the director, who told me to bring Dutchie to PetsMart this afternoon because they would be there as part of an adoption event. I like this organization (and organizations similar to them) because they house adoptable dogs in foster homes instead of cages, and there's no risk of them being euthanized. Plus, they hold newly surrendered pets for 7-10 days and continue searching for the owners before officially putting them up for adoption, which gives Dutchie's owner more time to find her and get her back (if they want to, that is. It has been brought to my attention that she may have been set loose on purpose, given that no one appears to be looking for her. It's also possible she was stolen, which means we have no idea where she came from).
So now I'm back to just Shadow, who barely blinks at the cats when they venture out of hiding to come glare at him reproachfully. My hope is that, with yippie Dutchie gone, they'll rediscover some of their bravado. I miss my kitty babies, and I admit it'll be nice when it's just the 3 of us again. I like dogs just fine, but my heart belongs to those little feline furballs.

Communication is key!

Texted conversation from yesterday:

5:35pm Me (to brother): Burgers and beers* over here tonight?
5:36pm Ross (brother): Yeah! Dad never called you? We will be there around 7 or so.

5:36 Me (to dad): Burgers and beers over here tonight?
5:37 Dad: Yes. I thought Ross contacted you. He's coming over and we'll be to your place 7-730 with food and drink.

Naturally I ratted them out to each other with plenty of "HAHAHAs" and exclamation points. I'm glad I said (I mean texted) something, otherwise I would have been in for a surprise!

*Burgers and Beers has become a longstanding dinnertime tradition on Friday nights. Sometimes we go out to restaurants, but lately the preference has been to meet at someone's house with takeout (Carl's Jr. is a fave) and watch a movie (or trashy reality tv). I love being part of a family of homebodies!

Animal House

I was going to just do an "Update" to the previous post, but the story of getting Dutchie settled in is too funny not to be given it's own post.

This is "Dutchie," the sweetest Boston Terrier I've ever met (okay, she's the only BT I've ever met, but she's setting a good example).

Crappy cell phone pic of cuddly L'il Dutchie

Brad brought her over just a little bit ago, and for a few minutes it was dog mania hilarity: picture two dogs on leashes, the bigger one standing stoically while the little one ran circles around him and the legs of the two humans. At one point I was caught in the middle of the tangle of leash lines and tried to step over them so we wouldn't have to play London Bridge again, but Brad did a little sidestep at the same time, which nearly resulted in very painful experience for him. I apologized for nearly kneeing him in the family jewels, then tried not to burst out laughing as he leaned around me trying to keep himself from getting caught in the crazy tangle.
"I'm sorry!" I gasped, to which he replied, "we're a mess!"

We finally got everybody untangled, and Brad took off to get to the airport. As for the rest of us, Dutchie is sleeping next to me on the couch, Shadow is resting nearby, and Bootsie and Spitter are hiding in the "office room" and may not resurface till bedtime (I use quotes because it's really just a storage space right now).

Brad has been in contact with a woman who offered to take Dutchie if her owners don't show up in several days. I don't want to give Dutchie up to hastily in case her owners are out of town or something, but at the same time 4 animals and 1 me is not the best ratio! Maybe the woman who offered to take Dutchie would agree to be a second doggie fostermama, with the option to adopt if the owners still aren't found after a while.

My family is supposed to come over for dinner this weekend...I'm tempted to put a sign on the door that says "Welcome to the Animal House: Enter at your own risk!"

The dog days of summer

At one point in time I operated what basically amounted to a home-based kitty hospice.

Now I have apparently switched businesses to some sort of canine halfway house for foster dogs and runaways.

One the same night I got Shadow back (Wednesday), I was asked by a shar pei rescue group if I knew anyone who could house a shelter dog for a day (Thursday), until transportation arrangements could be made to send the dog to its new owner in CO. I wanted to take the dog myself as a pay-it-forward sort of thing, but I wasn't sure how Shadow would react to having another dog around after the stress of his ordeal. Since it was such short notice I wasn't able to ask around as much as I wanted to, and there was no news on him today so I don't know the ultimate fate of that pup.

But the universe seems to be determined to take me up on that pay-it-forward business: yesterday afternoon I discovered that my mom's friend, Brad, had found a stray dog the night before; he had been out walking his own dog when "Dutchie" (the name my mom randomly gave the runaway) came flying up the sidewalk, friendly as can be, but with no collar and no owners chasing after her.
Given that I just went through the Lost/Found Pet ordeal with Shadow, and am a frequent pet-sitter for Brad's dogs, Brad enlisted my help to find this pup's owners. He took her to the vet to check for a microchip first thing, no such luck. Then he printed out some Found Dog flyers and we drove around posting them in his neighhorhood. The pup is a small breed (boston terrier) who is clearly well-fed, so hopefully she didn't get very far from home.
Brad has to fly to Australia on a business trip today, so if "Dutchie's" owners aren't found by the time he has to leave for the airport I agreed to take "Dutchie" for a little while, in the hopes that her owners will come looking for her. If they don't, Brad wants to take her to a Boston Terrier rescue group. Neither of us can stomach taking her to a shelter...she's such a sweetheart, and AZ shelters are heartbreakingly awful.

I can't believe that in less than a week I, the quintessential cat lady, have become the temporary foster petmama of 2 wayward dogs. What am I getting myself into?

My kitty babies have been largely avoiding Shadow since his return...let's see what they do with a dog who is their own size! Shadow and "Dutchie" met yesterday afternoon (Brad brought her over and we kept both dogs on short leashes) and they seemed to get along fine, but I will probably keep them separated if I can't be around to supervise.

I really must say, it  sure seems like my life has gone to the dogs these days (literally!).

There's a Shadow in the house!



Well. So, Shadow went on quite an adventure barely an hour after arriving at my house on Saturday evening. He slipped his collar during a walk around my neighborhood, and though two young boys, a friendly father and his 8 year old daughter, my own dad and brother, and I chased him around the neighborhood for hours, we were unable to catch him. When the sun went down and we lost sight of him, I admitted defeat for the night and went home completely crushed.

 

I don't feel like rehashing Shadow's ensuing "adventure" (or in my case, gut-punching ordeal) in detail here on the blog, but I do intend to write the whole thing out, especially the end when things got good. The important thing to know is, Shadow is back safe and sound, thanks to the above-and-beyond efforts of lots of people. From Sunday through Tuesday my days were spent communicating with an incredible network of dog lovers, all of them strangers who heard about my lost dog situation from the various alerts and notifications I posted on the internet (I never even got the chance to put up my paper posters, of which I had printed over 50...but I ain't complaining!).

On Wednesday afternoon I got Shadow back and found a new hero. A good samaritan named Steve chased Shadow ON FOOT after he, two young women, and my dad helped me track him by car nearly 5 miles away from where he had first disappeared...I will never know how Steve managed to get the choke chain around his neck, because I was still in my car, idling helplessly in the parking lot Shadow had disappeared into, while Steve pounded the asphalt with a speed that (in my opinion) is worthy of the Olympics. I can only guess how he managed to wrangle Shadow, but whatever he did, I say he should join a rodeo if the Olympics don't work out.

 

The important thing is, Shadow is back, he's unhurt, and he's safe. He walked back into the house (on a leash!) yesterday just two hours shy of exactly 4 days (96 hours) from the time he left it (on a leash). It was probably the longest walk he's ever been on in his 5-ish years of life...and he's not going on any more while he's here with me! He'll have to settle for exploring my nice and secure backyard. Last night when we went out for our nighttime potty break, he lifted his face in the air and sniffed and sniffed...I wonder if he could still smell traces of his adventure in the neighborhood, or if he was just glad that he wasn't smelling hot asphalt and car exhaust anymore!

After taking a nice big drink of fresh water

Several people who know the full story have put in their two cents: "Meryl, you have to write the whole story." "Meryl, you know you could get that published, right?" "Meryl, make sure you record every detail of your experience, it's gonna be a novel someday."

This story is definitely one for the books, so look for it on the shelves in the probably-still-pretty-distant future! In the meantime, I know a boy who's gonna need a lot of rest. As for me, I'm  just happy that my days will no longer consist of continually refreshing my browser on every Found Dog listing on Craigslist and beyond, and hopefully now my phone will stop ringing every 5 minutes! Speaking of which, I guess I better change my voicemail so it no longer talks about a lost dog.

And of course a HUGE "Thank You" goes out to Steve, Lindsay, Lisa, Jere, G.G., Dennis, and everyone else whose names I either never got or just couldn't hold on to in the rush of events that made it possible to bring Shadow home. Every single one of them made it possible for Shadow to be found, and I am eternally grateful. And I am so deeply humbled by the fact that they all acted out of the kindness and goodness of their own hearts; if anything good can come out of a lost pet, it's being able to witness a community of strangers coming together purely out of love for the animal. If every action taken, word spoken, and deed accomplished had that much love infused within it, we'd live in a completely different world. Don't you agree?



Sleeping off his wild adventure

My (totally random) inheritance

Today I learned that on Saturday I'm inheriting a bed, a table, and a dog.

The dog is a temporary foster placement and will likely be here for several weeks. I come by my propensity for doggie and kitty foster parenting very honestly. My family has a history of taking in wayward animals...on my count we inherited no fewer than 9 cats and 5 dogs throughout my childhood and adolescence (not all at once!). I'm pretty sure that only one cat and one dog were actually purchased, and all the others came to us from off the streets or were brought to us by people who knew we would care for them. Spitter was supposed to be a temporary foster, but I ended up keeping her because we bonded so strongly; Bootsie actually kind of adopted me (as in, she showed up one night and never left).

This new doggie, Shadow, will be my first foster pup since moving into my little house. He is coming to me by way of my dear friend Karen, whose son (Shadow's owner) travels for weeks at a time for his job and can't always give Shadow the time and attention he needs. Karen is in her sixties-ish, still works full time and can't care for the dog herself, so she asked me today if I would be willing to take him until her son gets back or a new a permanent new home is found. I said yes (obviously).
Spitter and Bootsie are very territorial and are going to flip their freakin' lids over the presence of a dog, so I'm going to make sure that Shadow is 100% cat friendly before I let them socialize. This is going to be an adventure, I'm sure!

As for the bed, I currently have a queen-sized bed, which is slightly too big for my bedroom (I have maybe 2 feet of space left to move around in). As luck would have it, Karen happens to have a twin bed that's currently gathering dust in her garage. She not only offered to include the bed in Saturday's doggie delivery, she asked me what else I needed and tried to get me to take a desk! I love her, haha. I doubt Spitter or Bootsie will miss having the extra space of the queen, since their preferred sleeping arrangement involves taking up as much of my personal space as possible. Now I just have to figure out how to dismantle the metal bedframe of the queen.

Karen is not providing the table, but I'm sure if she had one she'd try to convince me to take it, too! The table is originally from Ikea, but I'm getting it for more than half-off on Craigslist. Woo hoo!

 I'm picking up the table at 1pm, the bed and dog are expected to arrive around 4pm. What a day that's going to be!

Falling out of summer!

Happy September 1st!!!

To me, September heralds the giddy anticipation of good things to come as we begin to approach the end of the year:

*Cooler temperatures as we finally begin the downward slope out of summer!
*The first day of fall (September 22)
*The traditional joint-celebration for my and my mom's birthdays (which are 8 days apart)
*Heaps of Thanksgiving mashed potatoes
*My younger brother's birthday
*The first day of winter (December 21)
*24/7 Christmas music (everything having to do with the Christmas season, really).

I wish I could add the impending beauty of colorful autumn foliage and Winter Wonderlands to my list, but I have to drive 2 hours north if I want those. You can bet I'll be making that trip, hopefully a handful of times!

Happy Start of the Best Part of the Year!!!