Howdy, Neighbor!

We now return to Dogs on Thursday, already in progress.

Blogland, meet Abby. Abby, meet blogland.

No, no, read the title folks. Calm down. You’ll likely get advance notice if/when we make an addition to our family. This is our dog sitter’s new baby. She’s a bitty, wee, one pound chihuahua, and her human parents couldn’t be more excited. She will come visit our household tomorrow evening. The Knight has seen her, as Neighbor Boy had to pick her up from his girlfriend’s work on Monday (Neighbor Boy also works with us, in addition to his dog sitting duties and our shared volunteer work at the firehouse), so Abby got to ride in the Knight’s work truck across town.

I’d actually planned this post several weeks ago, when I learned the arrival date of the little pup, and as we work through our grief, it’s time to celebrate the living. Mugsy is settling in at work better than expected, so my evil plot to make it a permanent “visit” won’t be met with an resistance by the inlaws. In fact, my father inlaw has been able to use Mugsy’s cute little “groundhog” begging pose to teach Shadow (the Knight’s grandfather’s sheltie) to sit up too. Evidently, like people, dogs have different learning styles. After nearly two years of trying to teach Shadow said trick, he pulled it off successfully after mimicking Mugsy yesterday. (This photo documents one of the earliest attempts. Note the “cheat” with Shadow’s paw bracing against my father inlaw’s arm!)

Shadow thoroughly enjoys having Mugsy here too, and wanted to make sure EVERYONE got that. This morning, he refused his biscuit until Mugsy arrived, so that they could eat together. Seriously. How sweet is that?! There are two darling photos trapped in my phone of Mugsy in Pop’s lap (TRUE job security, when he has the man whose name is on the front of the building wrapped around his little nubby tail), and of Mugsy and Shadow napping together. The Knight says the quality is too poor to share, but we’ll see about that.

This seems like a good time to mention that progress continues on Fred’s Garden. Perhaps after this weekend, it will be ready for a photo shoot. I don’t know that we’ll get any flowers planted this fall, but the Knight has mulch plans for Saturday. It has been a great source of grief therapy for the Knight, and will be a lovely memorial for all of us.