(no subject)

I haven't posted much lately. As you may know we had put Gilly to sleep a few weeks ago. I still hear her around the house. Sometimes it's the click clack of her nails on the hardwood floor. Sometimes it sounds like she's knocked something over or was in some other kind of mischief. As I called her to me, I realized she was gone of course. We are starting to look for another dog (maybe two) We'll never stop missing Gilly, but it's also hard to be home alone so much.

We have filled out a few intake forms for rescue organizations and we're keeping an eye out on virtual pets to see what's available at the local SPCA's and animal shelters. We got very close to adopting one puppy but then discovered that she was already taken. Looking at dogs is harder than I remember. As I'm deciding whether a dog will fit into our family I fall a little in love with each dog. So there are these micro-relationships beginning and ending in an afternoon.

We think we might like to get another Dobie. At least, we applied to the local Doberman Pinscher rescue. They don't really have a dog for us now, but we are in the queue. We also found a Doberman/Border Collie mix that looks very much like a Doberman. We also have the possibility of maybe adopting a Doberman puppy. A red Doberman had four puppies, one a black and tan looks just adorable. They all have ringworm and won't be eligible for adoption until that is cleared up. There seems to be some confusion on whether the shelter will adopt out the mother and her puppies or will they give them over to the Doberman Pinscher rescue. We will see.

We also applied to a couple other more general rescue organizations and the Northern California German Shepherd rescue. We have ruled out getting a Pitbull Terrier, a pit cross or Rottweiler. Liability issues are just to extreme even though some of the best dogs I've seen at various shelters are pit bulls and Rottweilers. I would prefer we stay away from hounds because they can be so loud. I am not a big fan of poodles or Chows. It's a prejudice on my part. I have no excuse. I'm sure that if the right Standard Poodle showed up we would take her or him. I doubt there is a Chow on the planet that I would adopt but who knows? Just so people know we are looking for a medium to large dog. Probably shorthaired, hopefully at least housebroken. Although the more training the dog has had the easier it will be for us. Along with Doberman Pinschers; German Shepherds, Labrador Retrievers, and Malinois are some of the breeds we've concidered.

Although, in principle, we would love to adopt an older unwanted dog. Losing Gilly has been a body blow and we just can't consider a dog that will die in the relatively near future. So we aren't really looking for a dog much over two years old. We think we worked things out so we can consider a puppy but that's not a particular preference. We anticipate some trouble housebreaking since I can't really handle a dog that hasn't had some training and neither can dbubley. That's what we are looking at so far

(no subject)

I came down with cellulitis yesterday (actually Sunday evening). I'm on antibiotics already, thank you on-call doctor, 24-hour pharmacy and especially my sweet, sweet loracs. I was disappointed because I had been feeling so physically strong earlier that week. Anyway, as often happens in my life along with the truly sucky stuff, there is a little good. I had managed to horn in on serenejournal and leback's lunch date yesterday. We were originally going to go out to eat, but as is often the case with cellulitis and antibiotics for me, the first few days make me very weak. So I wasn't up for going out to eat. I tried to "un-horn in" on the lunch, but they both decided to come over to my place. serenejournal made what I was told was a very tasty polenta. I tend to shut down when I'm sick and only really felt like drinking coffee and having a peanut butter and butter sandwich. We spent a truly lovely afternoon together. leback even brought me some peanut brittle (a favorite of mine). My joke for the afternoon was, "boy do I know how to show a woman a good time". Since the last time I saw leback she visited me in the hospital during my attack of pneumonia. The next time she sees me I'm down with cellulitis. I am a party animal!