New House

Yesterday and today dawned bright and sunny - the thunderstorms that rampaged through the area yesterday afternoon are expected to do the same again today. It's 57 degrees (F) outside, Gimpy is eating peanuts in the living room, and both kits are sunning themselves on the patio. I had to laugh at the dogs yesterday evening - Coffee is a 17-year-old Dachshund, deaf and almost totally blind; Rusty is a 7-year-old Jack Russell terrier; Sadie is a non-socialized 4-year-old Irish setter, freaked out by anyone and anything new. I was feeding them dinner at 6:30, per my instructions, but there was a stupendous storm taking place outside - rain, hail, lightning, and very loud thunder. Sadie, who had avoided me until I broke out the dinner bowls, was suddenly attached to me like a leech. Coffee ate every bit of her food (this after her owner had told me she rarely eats), Rusty had gulped her feed down, and kept going over to check out Sadie's bowl. Sadie would take a bite, and then it would thunder, and she'd hide behind my legs... Finally, I placed her bowl back in the 'fridge, and a couple of hours later fed her when the rumbling had stopped.

I had been told that Coffee could not get up and down the stairs in the house by herself - she was gaily galloping up and down them all evening and night long. Sadie, who is dependent upon Rusty for courage, was deserted when Rusty finished her dinner and went to her bed and disappeared for the night. Sadie sacked out on the floor, touching my foot. If my foot moved away, she would follow it.... She was so upset that I, the stranger, became her security blanket. She slept in bed with me, too. The owners told me the same thing they had told me last time I took care of the dogs - that one neighbor had complained that Rusty barked the whole time that I was there. She barked once last night when a stranger knocked on the door; when I put her out in her run today, I placed her anti-bark shock collar on her (even though I hated doing it); so Sadie can bark, but she can't. I'll have to see what kind of reports the neighbors give this time around. (And I did the same thing the last two times I stayed there....) Frippet, the 18-year-old African clawed frog is doing well. It's been over a year since I last took care of him, and he didn't bounce up and down in his tank when I spoke to him yesterday... after I fed him and gave him a live fly I had caught for dessert, he perked up. And this morning he greeting me with happy bobs. - I had to catch another fly for him, but it was worth the effort! Have a super weekend!!!