Familiar and Sometimes love

Thursdays and Fridays are very low tech days for me as I'm out and about doing
errands and going to my knit group so I have very little online time if any at all as 
there's not much down time.  And as I sat down to write today, I realized how much 
I missed y'all (my southern showing there!) because I'm a little behind in going through 
and reading entries for yesterday and today.

This comes as a welcome surprise for participating in Effy's Blogalong.  I love how much a 
part of this wider community I've been feeling....like I've finally found an online place of
'belonging'.  I've not felt that in a long while.  So if you're reading this and any of my other 
entries, and if you've just joined or are a long time member of my newsletter tribe thank 
you for the gift of your presence, thank you for sharing this space and thank you for journeying
with me.  

Going through my pictures on Instagram yesterday revealed an interesting fact;
I take a lot of pictures of my dog.  I think it has everything to do with these being 
digital photos with no cost to share them.  But even with me choosing to print some 
the cost is miniscule compared to what it was 5-10 years ago.  

Even with that consideration, I didn't really take pictures of my poochie baby until we 
got a new puppy in October of last year.  But let me introduce them to you.

This is Lacy, the best souvenir we could ever have brought back 
with us from Germany.  She's my healing angel as we were gifted 
her after I had had a miscarriage.  Though she tolerates my daughter 
and sees my husband as Alpha, she is definitely my baby.  She just
turned 11 and even before the arrival of the puppy, she's pretty 
spry for an older dachshund.  

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She is my familiar, laying in the bed under the desk next to me as I type, 
licking my tears when I'm sad, curling up next to me or letting me listen 
to her heart when I'm feeling low or coming downstairs to see why I'm still 
on the computer at way to late o'clock.  I usually refer to her as Big Dog or
the big one on Instagram.  Lacy was taken away from her mama at 6 weeks 
so she's got some socialization issues aka she thinks she's more human than dog in her behavior.  Also she was the only female in her litter which could explain why she walks with a decidedly feminine 'swish' in her hips!

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This is Chloe, who just turned a year old this past week.  
Our former neighbors had two dachshunds who had puppies 
and we couldn't resist the puppies.  I didn't want Lacy to be 
jealous so I let my daughter and son go over and spend time
with them to pick the best one for us.  My daughter is her favorite
person, followed by my husband, the my daughter's friend and 
somewhere after that is me and my son.  Because of that I call
her my sometimes love; some times she loves me, sometimes 
she could care less about me.

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Chloe was the runt of the litter and because we didn't take her
home with us until she was over 12 weeks there are very marked
differences in her behavior as compared to Lacy mostly in her ability
to be with and play with other dogs.   Chloe tries to engage Lacy in play
but that's something Lacy didn't learn much of if at all.  However Lacy's 
disdain doesn't bother Chloe at all as she keeps trying to engage her.   

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In the year they've been living in our home together, they've made great 
relationship progress.  Where once Lacy could stand to be near Chloe, they
now don't mind sharing my lap or laying in separate but touching doggy beds.
And there is the nightly game of snatch the rawhide bone and chase they've 
recently engaged in.  

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While I doubt that Lacy will ever fully enjoy Chloe's company, I'm very glad there is a bit of peace between them as they've both added so much to our family's life.  They are a natural extension of our family but with fur.  

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