The Girls

I thought I'd take a little time this morning to update everyone on our girls.

Izzy, as you can see in this photo, is busy teething and has become a toy hoarder extraordinaire. Sometimes her bed is so full that she has to lie on top of things. Yesterday I even found a post-it note in there that had fallen on the floor at some point.

Currently there is one application on her and although they look like wonderful adopters, they are in New Jersey and I really don't want this little one to have to fly cargo all the way across the country. I'm still hoping that someone at the pet store will fall in love with her when I bring her to work. Long transports are pretty rough on the fosters.

Tilly is really doing incredibly well. After a bit of plateauing on her rehab, she has started to progress again. After months of refusing to have anything to do with Troy and Hunter we decided it was time to force her to face her fear of them. We started by having them give her bits of dried chicken breast (it's like doggy crack, I swear) while I was holding her. At first she would barely take it from their hand. After awhile, Hunter would lie on the ground with his hand reached out and a bit of chicken in it. Tilly would hem and haw, pacing back and forth and then finally run up and snatch the chicken out of his hand and run away. Then, amazingly, she let him pet her while she ate the chicken - I was in the next room. Now she will actually come up to him and lick his foot and look up, waiting for a piece of chicken. Troy has done the same thing and the other day she actually came up to him while he sat on the floor and put her paws on his legs. This was the first time she had initiated contact with him when food wasn't involved. We are truly ecstatic that our puppymill gal has come this far. In the beginning I had wondered if she was too far gone and would have to be put to sleep because she was SO messed up. Now she's getting close to acting like a normal 6 year old dog. Go Tilly!!!

And last but not least, Bess. Miss Bess started her heartworm treatment 2 days ago and is heading into day 3 after the shot. Yesterday was her first day home and she did really well. I'm trying to keep her from getting bored in her crate by giving her things to chew on. Unfortunately, she's ripping through these rather expensive treats. So far she's gone through a 12" pizzle, a long "flossie" beef tendon, and she's now working on the hunk of himalayan yak cheese (a tough, smoked chew treat). I'm going to have to find something for her to chew on that will last a bit longer as we've got a long road ahead of us and at $6.50 a 12" pizzle, my pocketbook will only go so far. I think I'll pull out one of the nylabones and see if she goes for that.

And our permanent furry resident, Frodo, is his neurotic little self. I've put him on the herbal calming drops as well, in hopes of keeping his barking down and his need to charge the sliding door to scare of squirrels and birds. Luckily if there is a cushy blanket thrown on a chair in the living room he will burrow to the bottom of it and sleep, so that keeps him from noticing the critters hanging around outside. After a full day of being calm and quiet, I turned him and Izzy into the backyard last night and they ran back and forth through the leaves of the Japanese maple trees in a frenzied race, kicking up a gorgeous shower of red, orange and gold. Their race was so full of pent up energy that you just had to smile to see the sheer joy they were feeling as they ran their rattie 500.

So that's the latest with these four furry terriers and their three tired humans. Be sending healing thoughts to our Bessie girl as she heads into the critical period of her heartworm treatment.