Thursday, January 24, 2008

Good Morning!

I wish I had a beautiful rose garden and produced roses like the one above.  Today is my last day of work before a day off.  I hope the day goes well.  We got to do our own job the last two days.  We have a overloaded list of rehab residents to see.  Our boss put 36 on when we usually only carry 32.  I don't know why she did that knowing that we are getting pulled so often.  She is going to be gone the next 4 days to Lake Placid anyhow. 

I am hoping to go on vacation myself to Louisiana in April.  I had to e-mail Sarah's father and ask if we can switch Winter/Spring breaks.  I'm hoping he won't be a jerk and refuse it.  Child Support is taking him back to court because he stopped paying for a month.  He owes me $800 in arrears now.  I know he is getting his unemployment again.  I got a check last week and should get another today.  I hope he pays his house payment because I am getting sick of the daily phone calls from the collection people.  Really sick of it.  I am thinking of calling them and asking them if they want an arm or leg.  Anyhow I haven't seen my Mom in a year and I miss her.  I want to go down and learn how to sew.  I am going to buy a sewing machine.  I would like to make gifts for people and sew my own scrub tops and clothes for the dog!  I am just in love with this puppy.  She is so sweet and smart.  She is partially housebroke.  She is using the pee-pee pads right now.  I discovered that getting her outside when its this cold is useless.  I am going to take her over to the nursing home again tomorrow for a visit.  The residents just love holding a soft, warm puppy!  You should see their faces light up when they see her coming.  The eyes open wide, the smiles creep on and the hands reach out!  They start to coo and awww.  I mixed some soft food with kibble today for the puppy and she went nuts over it.  She ate the whole bowl of it.  One of the cats came over to investigate and she growled.  She did not growl at me.  Funny when I worked at the Animal Shelter in Scotia that would be punishable by death for a puppy.  They had "temperament tests" and growling at another dog or person while eating was a reason to put it to sleep.  To me that is normal puppy behavior!  Needless to say, they had very few dogs available for adoption.  In fact I remember a whole litter of gorgeous purebred puppies came in and only one made it up for adoption.  The others were put down for so called aggressive behavior during eating.  Wow, all my entries are so negative lately.  Sigh....  Well I hope everyone has a good day anyhow! 

hi mom and brenda

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think that is normal behavior too... hell if I'm eating something good and someone tries to snag off my plate I growl too!  Hmmm should I be put down?  
Hope you get that vacation!
hugs
d

Anonymous said...

Dogs can be trained not to growl at people when they eat anyhow; and people should be trained not to mess with a dog when it's eating!

It's the time of year when everybody sounds a bit negative.  I notice a lot less journal entries right now; cabin fever has everybody in its hold, I believe.

Anonymous said...

I don't think this one was all negative I loved you taking ur puppy in for those people and hearing about how delighted they were!  That is so kind of you to do for them!  I love people who treat the elderly with respect and kindness because some day that will be US  in there hoping we are treated the same way.  And that's terrible about the puppy's...your right..it is a natural thing and my boxer did that and all I did was continue to ALWAYS play with his food while he was eating and he did try nipping at me the very first time...all I did was grab his snout firmly and told him NO! The trick is to do this while they are still puppies! lol You wouldn't want to test this on a big dog who was not used to letting people touch his food unless you wore a big ass glove!! lol He never tried nipping again though and now will even let the baby play with his food... after a few weeks of training... without making a sound.  It only takes a few times working with the poor thing and that will be cured!  So sad!  

Anonymous said...

I can imagine how much the residents at the nursing home appreciate seeing your puppy ~ that is sad they put puppies down for growling when someone touches their food ~ I think that is a natural thing for them to do ~ hope you are having a good day ~ Ally x

Anonymous said...

Yes residents at nursing homes love pets. That is unthinkable for the animal shelter to put those dogs to sleep for defending their eating rights. Helen

Anonymous said...

Maybe you are onto something there...that pup could end up being a therapy dog. The couple of times I have taken Phoenix with us to Grandmamas nursing home people just love to see the little roo. He is very good about it too. Unsteady hands could scare most, but he takes it all in stride.

Anonymous said...

What a ridiculous way to judge temperment...geesh, those folks need to study animals a little bit more.  
Lisa