Welcome Back Lemon-Brat

Safe to say Lemon is officially back to 'normal' from spay and kennel cough. With a house full of mostly couch potatoes, she's the firecracker. She makes Alvin play with her, and Helen is mimicking Lemon -which is funny, cause Lemon's play includes a lot of humping-, and as per usual, after her hours of play, she's zonked out in a stupid position beside me snoring in my ear.

It is moments like this I go, why the hell am I giving Alvin a hard time? Lemon is just as annoying. My answer for this is: Lemon is mobile -she's a ping-pong ball- and she has dog skills (albeit, a little on the impatient side). Maybe what bugs me most about Alvin is that he can't do much on his own. Stairs and furniture are huge obstacles for him. But, if I was six pounds, they'd be mountains to me too. So, props to mister 6 pounds for dealing with me, and with annoying Lemon. At least now that she's feeling better they can be annoying together :P

Oh, and he's making progress on getting up on the couch. You leave him whine and pout and be an idiot for a few minutes and he'll eventually scrabble his way up, only to leave a few minutes later. Boys, they never know what they want! ---As a previous purse boy, he's so used to being picked up to do ANYTHING. Too bad mister.

Today was an awesome day. Alphie had a fantastic combo homecheck+meet and greet. A great family with older children who he promptly snuggled with. He did his job and completely ignored me and loved up the family. I'm hoping to hear back from them tomorrow. The weirdest thing was that one of their sons (adult son) goes to school with Jerrad in Mechanical Engineering. Small world -though it always seems to be in dog rescue-.

Allie also made progress today and has gotten full 'off-leash' house priviledges. Before she was much too skittish, had potential to fear bite for me to bring her out of her crate if I needed to. I needed to make sure she was comfortable with my approach. Although I was still a bit unsure, at almost a month here, I knew it was time whether I was ready or not. She proved the benefit of the doubt works :) Now, I can crawl into her crate with her and put her leash on. She's still a little jumpy about it, -she isn't too fond of the approach- but she doesn't throw herself into a temper tantrum or become a fish out of water. This will be a process for the next few days, but I'm hoping soon she'll associate the leash with her walks, and that she'll want it to be put on. Time, patience, kindness. They will slowly mend her.

Allie has a homecheck on Sunday. Someone else is doing the homecheck, but I've given them the laundry list of 'Allie Bubba', all the good, and all the things she needs work (more time, patience) on. I'm a little torn. She's ready for her special someone, I know she is, but how do I trust its the right person? She's still one heck of a project dog -she might always be a project dog. In my gut there's no wiggle room with Allie. Either the person(s) is/are right, or they aren't. No maybes. I've promised her no maybes. I haven't felt so conflicted about a foster before -I think its because I'm worried about her. If/when she goes, will she take long to make a relationship? Will she even make a relationship? Will she regress to how she was before? Will they keep her forever despite her flaws?

And most importantly, Will she be happy? I see some happiness in her now, that sparkle in the eyes, that real wagging tail, the silly spaniel dance. I know she's capable of sharing this with someone else, but are they ready to wait for it? No use twisting my stomach in knots about it until the homecheck comes back with news.

And last, but not least I had a great conversation wtih Yvette at TG. I'm not sure quite why, but talking to her always makes me calm, and yet excited at the same time. Calm because I know she knows what she's doing and that I trust her to continue the track record, but excited because she talks about all her dogs and I want to foster all the buggers. Well, not all of them ;). If/When Alphie goes, we'll be up for another foster :) I'm SO glad to be possibly having another TG dog. I think I was going through withdrawal!

In closing notes, I have a suspicion Alvin's potential family got cold feet, as I haven't heard back from them. We'll see. He's a good dog, he is. I'm just being a confident, jerky female. Don't you worry Alvin, you'll find that home eventually (but it's still not here ;) ).