Temporary Dog, Halloween, and more

Last Wednesday, Grayson came home teary-eyed because a friend of his at school had told him that they were moving into his grandmother's house and were going to have to put his dog to sleep.

Well, of course, being the Dog Lady that I am, I was aghast. "Oh No!" I said. "We have to keep that from happening!"

Grayson had no further details. Couldn't tell me when the presumed death was scheduled to happen, or why the family was moving in with the grandmother, or much of anything else, except the dog is a black lab "like Flower."

Heart strings: Tug.

So the next morning we set out on our mission of rescue. I came to school with Grayson and collared his teacher during the morning assembly to tell me what she knew. Not much. But she sympathized and said she would contact the boy's parents that morning and let us know how to get in touch with them. Later she gave me a number for the boy's Mom.

She told me that she had had a heart attack (at 37!) several months ago, followed by a fall that severely damaged her knee. She's a surgical nurse, and couldn't continue to work until the knee is fixed, but the hospital dropped her insurance 4 days before her surgery, so she was obliged to use all their savings to have her knee repaired. Next, her husband got laid off, and now they are losing their house.

They had three dogs and two cats. A 13-year-old dog and 18-year-old cat were scheduled for euthanasia, because they are old and unwell. A lap dog belonging to the 11-year-old sister had already been placed in a new home. Now there was a cat and Roxy, a 3-year-old black lab, in need of homes. They had run the gamut of all their friends, acquaintances, friends friends, and families of the kids, but no-one had stepped forward to take Roxy. The Mom was sadly considering the possibility of having her put down when we called.

Hooray! We're able to save the day and make a family in desperate straits happy!

On Saturday, Roxy arrived. She is much smaller than Flower and verrrry nervous. She loves to play fetch, can catch a ball in mid-air, and is very affectionate and sweet. But she's a wee bit on the neurotic side. She's pathologically attached to her tennis balls, and she alternately carries them around, dropping them into everyone's lap in an attempt to make them play fetch with her; or lies down on the floor and systematically chews them into little bits (the balls, that is, not the people). Since Saturday she has gone through 5 tennis balls and a soccer ball.

She has gotten along fine with the other dogs (with the notable exception of a full-on fight with Flower last night over the remains of her dinner – all sound and fury, however, no blood), but they are puzzled by her neediness and obsession with people. She barks and throws herself at the door if left outside, even with the other dogs. She was raised in the country, so is unaccustomed to town noises like cars passing, distant sirens, and neighbor dogs barking. So she wakes up and barks hysterically every time she hears one of these noises at night.

Also, her family were apparently early risers. So 4 a.m. is Time To Get Up in Roxy's book.

Fortunately, all of these little difficulties are already being smoothed out. She is sleeping through the night, though still getting up before 6. The squeaking and barking for attention has decreased a lot as she begins to feel secure with us. And I've been able to leave her outside while I'm at work for the past day and a half without fear of her chewing through the door or injuring herself by lunging at it. I think we're going to be okay.

In the meantime, my family has grown. Now we are five. Okay, six if you count Mambo. Okay, eight if you count the fish, but I don't really count them.

Mambo, by the way, is much larger, and is now eating full-sized crickets, four or five at a go. This is a big improvement over meals of 15 to 20 small crickets. He is also eating spinach and a bit of carrot, so that's encouraging.

Halloween

Grayson was a vampire for Halloween. My mom, god love her, made a terrific black satin cape with a scalloped edge and red satin lining for him. It's glorious. The rest of his costume, I'll admit, was a bit weak. He doesn't like shirts with buttons, and insisted on wearing his crocks. So he was a vampire in dark blue corduroys, a black T-shirt and crocs. It didn't seem to bother him a bit, however. We did attempt to get some stick-on fangs for him, but we couldn't make them stick, and when I tried them on myself, they cut my gums, so we abandoned that effort.

He trick-or-treated twice over the weekend. Because of a conflict with an OU home game, Norman changed its "official" trick-or-treat night to Friday. So we went out with The Boys Friday night. We also attended an iron pouring at the OU Art School, which was sort of interesting. They sell carvable plaque molds for $15 apiece. You take it home, carve out the shape of the plaque you want, and then they fill it with molton iron at the event. Later this week we'll be able to pick up our finished piece.

On Saturday, I took Grayson up to the city to spend the night and go trick-or-treating with his best friend. Consequently, we have waaaaaaay more candy in the house than is strictly good for us, especially considering the fact that my folks insisted on giving him an entire bag of Hershey bars when he trick-or-treated their house.

For My Own Part...
I am attempting to do my back a favor by doing half an hour of yoga every morning after I drop Grayson off for school. This is part of my new "Do Something" campaign of self improvement and motivation. This also includes cutting back on wine consumption, cooking real food for my family, and filling my evenings with something besides Sponge Bob and sofa. I'm on day 2. So far so good. This very minute, there is a big crock pot full of Beef Bourguignon simmering away on my kitchen countertop. Good for dinner tonight, and enough of it to either make dinner tomorrow night or freeze for some desperate winter evening in the future.

Sad News

My folks white westie, Beaumont, also known as Bobo or BoMonster, has been diagnosed with cancer. The vet told them yesterday that he guesses the little guy has no more than about a week to live. Bo was a little more than a puppy when Grayson was born, and would install himself at Grayson's side when he was a baby, growling protectively at anyone who got too close or made too much noise. He got so protective, in fact, that he spent about a year on doggie Prozac so he would chill out enough to allow even Grayson's own family approach him. Now he's ten years old and we'll lose him soon.

Pets. You know when they come into your life, as I have said so often, that they will break your heart. Yet we take them in, we love them and raise them. They become part of our family. You can't regret it, even when they die and your heart grieves.

Roxy, nervous mess that she is, reminds me of Maggie, the dalmatian I had when Grayson was a baby. She died just shy of her 12th birhday, in my arms. Whenever I see Rox curled up on her blanket, looking anxious, my heart squeezes a little, still loving and remembering Mags, though she's been gone more than 8 years.

No regrets.