Day 4
Shnurffles.
Day 5
Tulip eats her breakfast without much prompting from me and actually ASKS for supper. (She picks up Redford’s bowl and carries it around the kitchen before nosing the food bin.) Yay! She eats!
She hates being alone. She just wants to be with everybody, not stuck in the spare bedroom by herself. She’s so mad
(She munches on the bottom of the door periodically too, but most of that damage was done back when I tried to switch Violet from Trazodone to Benadryl.)
In the evening, I have some friends over to hang out on the deck. My foster dog shnurffles them.
Day 6
The fur is growing back on Tulip’s ears.
I alternate my dogs on the deck and Tulip in the yard with Tulip on the deck and my dogs in the yard. They sniff and bark at each other through the fence railing.
Then sometimes, they’re on the deck and she’s in the house or vice-versa.
She hates being alone. She just wants to be with everybody, not stuck on the deck by herself. She’s so mad
Day 7
I go to the gym in the morning and perform poorly. When I get home, I’m determined to give myself some sort of victory for the day, and I decide it’s going to take the form of introducing my dogs to Tulip. It’s been two weeks, it’s going to happen, and it’s going to be great, goddammit.
Betting on the fact that things will go more smoothly if all parties are (as they say where I’m from) plumb-tuckered-out, I take Redford and Violet on the 2.5-mile loop around the neighborhood, then take Tulip on the same loop. Violet goes in the spare bedroom with a rawhide, Redford in the kitchen, Tulip in the back yard. Violet protests loudly from her prison cell.
I let Redford onto the deck, and he and Tulip wag. No hackles. I open the gate. She immediately jumps on Redford’s back. He’s clearly less than comfortable with it but doesn’t show his teeth. I walk around the yard, encouraging them to follow. They romp a bit. Nobody’s being mean. Tulip is digging it, Redford less. There’s rrrring, but it seems friendly. I’m trying to exude a “calm, assertive eneryee” like César Millan says to do. Having trouble, though, because I have to pee. Two minutes, maybe, and I decide that’s enough for now.
I take Redford into the house, pee, and check my email. Try again. Tulip is overjoyed. Redford snarls at her almost immediately. I cave and bring my boy back inside.
Sadness pile.
Tulip and I go to my sister’s house because my dad‘s in town and it’s part of my evil plan to get Bubba to adopt a dog. “Not a beautiful mug, is it?” he says as he looks at her, but he scratches her chest and my foster dog shnurffles him. It’s true, she’s not a beauty like Buffy was, but she’s so cute and shnurffly!
My nephew and I throw a tennis ball for Tulip in Magical Fetchland. I guess she wasn’t plumb-tuckered-out because she spends nearly five hours frolicking in my sister’s yard.
She’s really great around the kids, even the two-year-old. Yay, a plus to go in her bio!