I don't know what kind of dog she is. Or more accurately, what kinds of dog. She was advertised on the online mutt-rescue site as a fox-terrier mix, but . . . yeah, maybe there's some fox terrier in there, but there are other things, too. Her build is very like a greyhound or whippet's, though she's a heavier dog than that: still, she has that wasp-waist body shape, and all her muscle in her hindquarters. She likes to run –– we took a quick walk this morning, but what really burned the edge off her energy was running after a toy in the backyard for ten minutes or so, getting to put on some bursts of speed. Then she came into the house and was calm. Her coloring is like a fox terrier or Jack Russell, though she could have some beagle as well, who knows? And her head is terrier-like, but maybe with a touch of boxer, or a soupçon of one of the bully breeds. It's a fairly broad head, but she doesn't have heavy bulldog-like jaws. More and more, those ears look greyhoundy to me, as well as her body shape.
Taken all together, even with all these potentially disparate components, she's a very pretty dog. She's affectionate and sweet-natured, on the submissive side, and extremely responsive to commands. She is what I believe they call a velcro dog, although I'm going to think of her as an accompanier, by which I mean that if I need to get up for a drink of water, she will be with my on my pilgrimage to the sink, and will process the experience with me upon our return to the kitchen table, and her bed on the floor by my chair. By accompanier I also mean that I might be in my seventies before I go to the bathroom alone again.
We have her because this guy –– a nice guy named Kevin, whom we thoroughly enjoyed meeting yesterday –– discovered on bringing her home from the SPCA, roughly six weeks ago, that his cat hates dogs. Actually, he showed us video footage he had taken of the cat stalking the dog, to terrorize her from the kitchen countertops, and I can report that indeed this cat is twenty pounds of solid hatred. This cat is also, for reasons I can't quite fathom, the animal his kids are attached to. He is clearly a dog person and had worked with Dora a good bit in the time he'd had her, and was sorry to let her go. I felt kind of guilty taking her off his hands, though not as guilty once I'd seen the videos of the cat and learned that the cat, not the dog, was the kids' adored companion. I had been worried about those kids, and now I'm not. Anyway: our gain.
She is spayed and has had some shots, though from the SPCA paperwork it's not clear whether she had all the shots listed, or whether they highlighted some as recommendations for later. I do know she's had her rabies shot, because she has the tag –– it was still taped to the paperwork, but now it's on her collar where it belongs. Kevin had not taken her to the vet yet, so she also hasn't been on heartworm prevention, though her test for them, when he first got her, was negative. SO we'll be popping in to see the vet, the fun part of life with dogs, if by fun one means it's fun to drop a two-hundred dollar minimum every time we see each other.
So this is Dora. It's great to have her. I hadn't realized quite how much I missed a dog in the house, but I did. I anticipate seeing more of her personality in the coming days; right now she's naturally a little anxious about things. There's a 333 Rule for rescue dogs: 3 days for them to start to emerge from the overwhelm of transition; 3 weeks for them to begin to feel comfortable enough to let their guard down; 3 months before you can see clearly what's transition behavior and what's actually a behavior problem needing intervention.
I did wear my Sierra-leggings-Docs combo all day yesterday, though I traded the cardigan I'd worn to church for a zip-up hoodie sweatshirt jacket. The Sierra did indeed take on a lot of white dog hair, since Dora rode on my lap most of the way home, but the fabric stood up admirably to doggy claws. Hers have been trimmed and weren't too sharp, certainly not as sharp as cat claws or very little puppy claws, but at any rate, the dress sustained no damage from them, despite coming into a lot of contact. She jumps up a little, which is fairly natural for a still-puppy, though she doesn't jump hard –– mostly she stands up very straight on her hind legs like a trick dog and puts her front paws on you very gently. But I don't think I'll be wearing anything significantly more delicate than Sierra for a while, as long as we're working on things like that.
Giving Sierra a break today, in fact, and wearing an old dress: this thrifted navy-heather microfiber swing dress, with old navy (as opposed to Old Navy) leggings, my new-to-me secondhand teal cashmere cardigan, and my Birk Madeiras.
If my long-sleeved bamboo swing dresses are "Fauxwenas," then this dress is my imitation Maggie. I mean, obviously it's not, really. It's not any natural fiber, let alone merino. But it's a short-sleeved crew-neck swing-style dress, versatile in many of the same ways, even given its shortcomings. It was the first dress I tried hiking in, on a fairly long, challenging day-hike trail –– while the performance obviously wasn't merino-quality, it was good, and I wore the dress straight out to dinner, just as I later did after hiking in my Camellia. I didn't invite anybody to smell me too closely, but I felt fine. Anyway, one day this dress will wear out, and I will endeavor to replace it with something in a natural fiber, merino if possible, but that day is not today.
Day 4 hair in a ponytail. Ready to go walking later on with Dora, and to check out the dog park. If it's empty, we'll stop and play –– not sure we're ready to take on other dogs just yet. But first, since she's quiet and lying on her bed at my feet, I'm going to try to get a little work done.
