Catching my breath

Part of last week’s excitement was getting Niki updated on his vaccines. He was two or three weeks late on them, which isn’t really a big deal normally. But we were out of power for four days.

I had the brilliant idea (after we had power back, of course) to put the dogs in day care the next time we have an extended outage. That way, they can play and socialize, and I can go somewhere and work without feeling guilty that they’re alone in the dark. But.

As a dog owner, you can’t just drop off your dog at doggie day care with some cash. No, it’s like normal day care. Paperwork needs to be exchanged, dogs need to be evaluated, and the most important part- the day care facilities and employees need to be evaluated by the neurotic concerned owner. Though Andrew and I have talked about doing doggie day care for them (for more socialization and enrichment) during the rainy season, neither of us have moved forward on it. It just wasn’t a priority. Now that we have power back, I STILL haven’t moved on it. It’s a process.

In any case, we had Niki’s vaccines updated, Elphie had a “happy vet” visit, and we went to Purlescence. Part of what I want to do with the dogs is to get them socialized with more people, and definitely more children. I took them in, and effectively tethered them to me. (Tethering is a dominance thing, to gently remind the dogs that I’m alpha.) They were unusually well-behaved.

I was thrilled. My dogs? Well-behaved? Okay, I’ll go with that.

The Purlescence crowd were champs- treats were given liberally, but they insisted that the dogs perform for tricks, which is great. Even Elphie (who is normally a little withdrawn and skittish around strangers) made a few friends.