RODEO ... watch for him!

Hold your breath for RODEO, who should arrive later today. You can find a picture of him on the Misty Creek Dog Rescue website - he looks like a gentle little charmer who will need a jacket for this winter weather! For now, here is Ginny, foster-mom in waiting.

PALS Moments

Iggy and I just got back from our PALS visit. I really didn't want to go today. I had a headache, and it was so cold outside. But, as Don put it, I had made a promise. And of course I couldn't overlook the irony of it all. Relative to a headache and the temperature outside is life on the inside, no hope of parole.

Nameless lady: strapped into a wheelchair. For good measure, held in by an attached table over which she leans, trying to pull herself up and out. Every time I look at her, she's making eye contact. "Help me. Help me." As on the last visit and the one before that, I go over and hold her hand. She clings to mine, and gives me background information, none of which sounds good. "They're all dead," she says, and she could be referring to something in her past or to the room we're in right now. I don't talk to her because I don't know what to say that might help. I think she just wants out.

Helen: new, and sitting by herself in a hallway nook. She keeps falling down, she says. Her family and her dog live in Mackenzie Town, and she has no idea why they put her here. She can't bear to go to the main sitting room, because it's so sad. "I just don't fit in here," she says. We tell her we'll be back in two weeks and we'll keep our fingers crossed that she'll be back in Mackenzie Town. I'm thinking she couldn't be too hard to look after because she's so tiny. If she were my mother I'd just take her home with me.

Tawnia: Native, looks about 35. In a wheelchair by the door. A volunteer says to her, "Too cold to to outside for a smoke today, right?" Tawnia says, "I've been out three times already." Volunteer: "I wouldn't do it." Tawnia: "Well, you ain't got any Indian in ya."

GINNY INTERMISSION

Here is foster-mama Ginny, who loves all this puppy business and who (in this picture) has just captured a wild sheep.

IGGY INTERMISSION

This is Iggy, the grumpy old man who has no interest whatsoever in all this puppy business. (Which explains why there were no pictures of Iggy with Tristan.)

KEYWORDS: "OUT THERE"

Well, Tristan has been adopted and goes to his new family at 5:30 today.

I'll miss his baby-fur and wet nose and the little snuffly-noises he makes when he's sleeping. As the volunteer coordinator at the Humane Society put it, saying goodbye to a dog leaves a wound. Which, she added, "...you sew up with another dog."

So we'll see what happens next. According to the e-mail I just fowarded to Don, there are more puppies that need fostering. These puppies are currently "out there" where day-time highs are going to be -20. Can we help?

Of course we can help! How many puppies are there? I will take all them all and keep them "in here" where it's warm, and there are so many pee-stains on the carpet that a few more won't hurt.

AND HE SUMMITS!

THE BIG EXPLORE

Tristan looking good in white!

TRISTAN THE SNOW DOG!

He loves the snow! Tristan can go from full-nap to full-run and back again, all in the space of a few minutes.

Hmmm... maybe I can chew you into the shape of a shoe...

Iggy received this stuffed toy at one of his PALS visits, but he wasn't much interested because there were no eyes to remove. So Tristan has yet another toy.

BUT CAT FOOD IS GOOOOOD.....

Here is Tristan after being told to "Leave it!" (the cat food, that is). He knows the Leave It command very well, having practiced it in relation to all objects known to man.

TRISTAN UPDATE

Tristan is doing great with training - the only thing holding him back from perfection is all that puppy-exuberance!

To the list of achievements in his little autobiography (a few messages down) we can add the following:

He now sleeps all night in the crate with no whining. During the day, he has a habit of falling asleep under my chair. He waddles into his crate and flops down quite happily when I wake him up and say, "Go to your crate."

He's still quite attached to me, but is gradually widening his territory. Today we went for a car ride with him in the crate. We left him for about 20 minutes where we could watch the car. He must have been quiet because people who walked past the car didn't even look in (and they certainly would have if Tristan was upset - he has quite a voice!) When we came back to the car, he was just lying quietly, not at all concerned.

Tristan is also a great walker. Until a couple of days ago, he didn't want to leave the house. He would brace himself against the leash until we turned around to come home. But now he accepts the leash in any direction. Yesterday, we went for what I calculate to be about a mile, and he trotted along beside me the whole way.

And last, Tristan has learned to sit with the big dogs and wait for his supper. That took a lot of self-control because he is one hungry little guy!

BUT I'M STILL HUNGRY!

No, he's not hiding - he's under the big-dog food tables looking for crumbs.

"LEAVE IT!"

Poor Tristan! He just doesn't understand why he should have to leave it. It's just sitting there and it is, after all, a doggy treat!