Zen to Zany
I laughed aloud when I saw this picture.
My husband and I got used to sleeping when we could, wandering around when we couldn’t, reading for another hour, then sleeping in, or taking a nap.
Then came Amber.
Amber at 3 months
Amber is a 3 month old yellow Labrador retriever. We adopted her at 10 weeks old, a month ago tomorrow. And what a whirlwind of a month we’ve had!
Now our lives revolve on when Amber was last out. We take her out for at least a short walk every two hours from 7:30 in the morning until about 11:00 at night. If we’re not walking her, we make a point of going out to the porch to cuddle, play, talk, as well as check her water dish. (She’s definitely a water dog. We fill the bowl half full, and then she cannot seem to stand it until she gets at least one paw in it. She drinks it, plays in it, splashes it all over the floor. We’re hoping that she’ll learn that when she does this, she might have to go for a bit where the bowl is empty. (Not long, but we’re hoping long enough to get her attention and maybe get her to change her ways.)
She desperately wants to jump on, and play with, our 12-year-old cocker spaniel/schnauzer cross, Molly,
Molly
and our cats, Abby
Abby
and Smoke.
Smoke
The problem is, NO ONE, except her people, wants to play with HER!
The one who handles our new family member best is Smoke. She routinely gets nose to nose with Amber, and then whacks her with a paw. Abby disappears until ‘the baby’ has gone back out on the porch Molly tries to disappear, and then growls and snaps a bit when Amber relentlessly continues to try to jump on her face. Of course, even when Amber was being good, standing in front of Molly with her head down, front paws straight out in front of her, bottom high in the air, and tail wagging furiously, Molly still growled and snapped.
The only one NOT giving us a hassle right now is Boo, my new black fish. It’s really hard to get a picture of her because of the reflection of the light on the bowl.
This picture is a professional one I found on the net, but it gives you a good idea of Boo’s face. She swims right over to me when I feed her, wiggling her body and lots of fins while goggling at me. She doesn’t say much and doesn’t give us any problems – a real relief right now.
To say logistics of where animals are at any given time is a full time job around here is a vast understatement. Also, in our efforts to get Amber acclimated to the house more, we try to invite her in several times a day. This is complicated because she loves to jump into the kiddie pool just before coming in from a walk, so we have to check to see how wet she is before she is allowed inside…
Suffice to say we fall into bed at night and are probably asleep within 30 seconds or less. We wake up still tired from the day before, but are determined to adapt to our new lifestyle, feeling lucky to have a houseful of wonderful animals.
