Summer's End

A lot of living has happened since my last post. Including knitting, of course, yet I feel like summer activities (whether or not summer weather is actually occurring) sort of crowd out my year 'round passions. So today is the first day of fall and one of my goals is to update more frequently rather than long, infrequent posts.

In July my 23 year old niece, Meagan, visited from Georgia and spent a week in the Seattle area. She brought Mariah, the six year old girl she has been raising (long, complicated story) and we picked them up at the ferry at the end of their week to take them to their final tourist choices: the Space Needle and the Fremont Troll. Then we returned to our house and the rest of my family arrived to visit with her. We barbequed, devilled eggs, ate fresh corn on the cob, and got to know her a little bit again. After dinner, the girls gathered to watch Ever After on DVD, a little like a slumber party. The visit was all too short before she was gone again. Her family moved to Georgia when she was in her early teens, and we've been missing them all ever since.

On August 16 and 17th, we hired a painter to spray the exterior of our house and we followed behind him with brushes. It was one of the few hot weekends, so we actually couldn't paint after noon or so. And on that Saturday, Kathy from Paws & Claws brought a 3 year old boxer mix to meet Maverick and us. George and I had been talking about a companion dog for Maverick, and I saw this girl dog on Petfinders, e-mailed them, and George arranged the meet. The dog is a sort of pushy girl, with no known history prior to turning up stray in Puyallup in June. She came in the gate ready to dominate Maverick. If I had known what I now know (that the dominant behavior is so prevalent for her), I don't think we would have even decided to try her out. She is the pup on the right - this was her first day here. We have now had her for five weeks, through running away (which turns out to be running after cats and squirrels), through getting on our bed, sofa, and recliner, through eating butter off the dining room table, through shrill barking when we give Maverick attention, through chewing through multiple Tupperware containers to eat ALL of the chocolate chips and nuts, and of course, the $500 emergency vet visit for the chocolate toxicity.

We have been hopeful of training her out of the behaviors we don't like. She does well at Obedience I training at Positive Dog in Woodinville. She still wants to dominate Maverick, although we are working hard to be alphas who correct some of the behaviors. We just don't know if Maverick is miserable or if this is a good thing for him, and although Paws & Claws has offered a consult with an animal behaviorist from the beginning, we didn't accept until last week when George reached his limit. Our first appointment with the behaviorist from Bark Busters is on Saturday, so I'll update the situation as it changes!