Dogs and Cats

I think I fell asleep during final relaxation in my yoga class. But then isn’t sleep the ultimate final relaxation?

We’ve only been back from Chicago for a couple of days, but already the trip seems like it took place in the distant past. The cats were cared for at home, but we boarded Goldy. The terrier mix never ceases to surprise me. She doesn’t bark most of the time, but when she does it is random. Who ever heard of a terrier that doesn’t bark? She spends most of her day in her chair. She has refused from day one to use the dog door. She doesn’t like her picture taken. The best I have is above.

Most dogs when picked up from being boarded, jump around and get excited when they see their human. Not Goldy. She walked next to me like I was her jailer. She had her head down and didn’t even seem to know or care that it was me. It’s become a two person operation to get her home from anywhere. One person to drive, the other to hold her wrapped in a towel and keep her from doing her crazy dog routine which amounts to her jumping around and falling backwards. I have a two seater car and the last time I tried to bringing her home on my own, she kept jumping and falling over the gear shift and I didn’t think we were going to make it home. Her behavior came as a complete surprise because I had driven her before in the two seater car and she was very well behaved. But that’s Goldy. You just never know.

My son drove the SUV, and I tried to keep her calm in the backseat. She was like the little piggie that squealed all the way home. When we got in our driveway, I had a hard time keeping her from jumping out of the car. She might not have cared much about seeing me, but her home was a different story. We all keep saying that Goldy is like a cat. And to balance things off, our big black and white cat Rocky is like a dog. He was so glad to see me when we got home and that he slept above my head with his paw on my shoulder.

I had to hold onto Goldy tightly to get her on the ground safely. Then despite her age of twelve or so years and kidneys that aren’t working one hundred percent, she dragged me to the gate. I had to run to keep up. As soon as she was inside the yard, she was off. She did what we call her tour, which means she covers the whole area, several times. Then she flew inside and across the house and plopped herself in her chair. She was so glad to be back in her chair, she barely wanted to eat or go outside.

I’m pretty sure I’ve told Goldy’s story before. We got her from a no kill shelter and she’d been there for a year and half during her formative puppy years and doesn’t seem to have bonded with people the way most dogs do. We think she was adopted and returned because of her aloof behavior. It’s a one way door at our house. Any animal that comes in gets to stay. And they have. I named one cat Einstein who I found on the front porch. The cat was brilliant to have picked the right porch to lounge on. Somebody had abandoned him, but that’s another story. Suffice it to say, he spent the rest of his life with us. So, there was never a question that this was Goldy’s home and we were her humans once she got here.

We love her just the way she is.