Wednesday, February 06, 2008

A Doggone Family Expansion?

When Fellow Traveler and I went on our vacation, we left Cassie, aka Miss Cassie May, with our friend L and her golden retriever Maize. We'd been just a bit concerned because Cassie had been somewhat non-committal about the whole thing during a previous home visit with the two -- she liked L all right, but treated Maize with a rather paws-off attitude, and in fact spent much of that evening amusing herself by staring out of L's living-room window at the neighbors instead of interacting with her new doggie acquaintance.

It turns out that, once we drove away, Cassie and Maize hit it off like gangbusters -- think Happy Time Dog Camp for both of them.

But now that we're all home, Cassie is in a state of abject depression. Our normally exuberant dog spends the day either sleeping or moping. We think she's not only missing Maize, but by extension remembering her beloved dog sister Katie, and even her affectionately antagonistic dealings with Cody.

So our household discussions have turned to the wisdom of getting another dog -- not only because of Cassie's apparent loneliness, but our observations of Semi-Son the Younger's and Semi-Son-in-Law's two dogs -- one of which had been an older, "only dog" with numerous health issues until the kids rescued the other dog. These two dog buddies are so happy, and the older dog's health has improved exponentially (a phenomenon we'd also seen in Cody, who I'm sure owed his last year of life to his new doggie pals).

This weekend we're going to travel to a neighboring county, Cassie in tow, and check out a private rescue household we found via Petfinder.com. This might be the beginning of another dog adventure for our household. And it may give a whole new meaning to the term "Lenten discipline."

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ah! When you mentioned in the title that your dog family was "expanding", then described Cassie and Maize's sleep-over, I initially thought "Happy Time Dog Camp" was a euphemism for an entirely different sort of "happy ending..." (not knowing the two genders involved).

Mazel tov!

Mary Beth said...

LOVED those vacation photos! and stories!

and yeah for the new doggyfriend!

zorra said...

Well, good luck. Sometimes it works,and sometimes...

One reason we got Amie was because the Scientist thought Zorra needed a friend. Unfortunately, we discovered, Zorra (and Amie) did not concur. Of course, Cassie is a more well-adjusted dog than Zorra ever was, so I would think that it would work out all right..

Scott said...

Hee hee - "Lenten Discipline." Talk about taking something on instead of giving something up!

I'm stealing one of your disciplines from last year (at least, I think it was you): I'm going to give one household item away for every day of Lent. Granted, this would have been more helpful for us BEFORE we moved, but it's not about our benefit: it's about my relationship with my stuff.

Wishing you the best this Lenten season.