Respite is a delay or cessation for a time, especially of anything distressing or trying; an interval of relief: to toil without respite (dictionary.com). Noting the gap in writing on this blog, the reader can be sure the last few weeks were trying and distressing. It is my last semester of English courses at ISU and while fascinating, they are very time consuming. Unfortunately, writings about the western myth, renaissance poets, Shakespeare and feminist criticism took priority over writing about dogs. Apologies reader!
Last I wrote, Cash was going to have his first bath. Normally I like to bathe foster dogs so I have an accurate understanding of exactly what they will and will not tolerate. Cash ended up having his first bath from a dear friend who manages Hemmingway’s Happy Hounds. She reported back that he did fairly well for a first time bath and was “ok” with the nail trimming. His winter coat is gone and he has a much sleeker, darker chocolate coat.
In the interim, Cash had to go back to the vet. One of the dogs, either one of our three, or a daycare dog bit his tail. We noticed him licking it on a Friday, PM, and by the next morning he had managed to remove all the fur from his tail over a two inch area! Arg, off to the vet we went. A shaved tail, ten days of antibiotics, and the cone of shame cured the small infection. Cash is good-natured about wearing the cone, but runs around in it like the proverbial bull in a china shop. For about a week we had to watch our knees and move anything fragile to higher ground.
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| Notice the warped edges of the cone. This is from running into everything at full speed. |
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| Pouting pup in the cone |
The 17th of this month would have been Zeus’ 8th birthday, which was a hard day for both Kevin and I. I pulled Miley and Cash into my lap at different points and just cried. Sometimes I just cannot believe he is gone. We still need to hang his prayer flags, but I think we will wait until spring is really here.
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Cash has progressed a long way from the skinny, smelly, rag-tag dog we pulled from the Paul shelter. He had no human vocabulary and had a really hard time the first few weeks communicating with us and vice versa. He would duck any time we tried to pet him, run away from us we moved too fast, and thought house rules were punishment. Cash was always a sweet soul, but it took some time and effort on both our parts to bridge the language barrier. Miley really helped us out with Cash! He has decided that the sun rises and sets on her. If she was calm and not reacting to household comings and goings, he would watch her and then imitate her behavior or at least decided to he was going to be ok.
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| Sniffing |
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| looking |
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| getting ready to RUN! |
I think we have built a strong relationship with Cash and that he is ready for an obedience class. He has mastered several of the basic commands, but it would benefit both of us to have a structured environment with lots of distractions. We use Good Neighbor Dog Training and they have a class starting next month. Honestly, Miley can always use a brush-up, too (or at least her owners can!!) GNDT also has an active agility group in which Miley participated. I would like to get her back into agility and see if Cash has the desire/aptitude for it, too. I love agility! It is so much fun for the dogs and for us. I think it would focus Cash, too. He loves to run and I would like to direct that running into a relational process where he wants to/required to look at me for direction.
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| run.. |
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| running... |
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| This is awesome! I am SO fast! |
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| absolute joy:) |
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| Phew! Slowing down a little |
EC
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