Day 96 - ADOPTED!

Today, Lana was adopted - by us, of course. We thought we had to act now since she looked all gorgeous on the new Petfinder photo.
We have just become so used to her and she's become part of the family.

She has found new confidence and is now even following me up the main staircase. She still won't go downstairs, but I'm positive that one day she'll just get up and do it.

So here the story ends......
Hey, at least it's a happy ending!

Day 94 - Sunday, April 12th, 2009

Last Thursday we got Lana groomed. Since we don't know anything about groomers, but heard from our neighbors who not to go to, we asked our vet. She said they had a groomer come up from Ponca City once or twice a month, that she was one of the best in the area, and loved poodles. Bingo! She was due to do her magic in 2 weeks and although I would have liked to have Lana groomed immediately, we decided to wait.

When I delivered Lana to the vet's office the groomer hadn't arrived yet. The vet assistant asked me what I wanted to have done, but all I could think of was: "Just make her beautiful!"

In the afternoon, Tom picked her up and when he got her out of the car I couldn't believe my eyes! I didn't think it was the same dog, because indeed, she was beautiful.

The groomer went all out, even painted her toenails pink. I've always frowned on people putting little ribbons on their dogs and painting their nails, but I'll be darned - it doesn't hurt the dog and it made her look so pretty.

As long as we don't treat them as fashion accessories I guess it's o.k.

We totally think Lana noticed a change, because she carried herself much differently - just pranced around with her head held high.

But see for yourself:

We are now seriously thinking about adopting her. She's still not o.k. with the cats, but has gotten much better. We think there's hope that in another few months she'll be able to fully ignore them.

The shelter took a new picture of her and posted it on Petfinder.com so we'll see what happens.

Day 78 - Friday, March 27th, 2009

O.k., so I didn't post anything when I said I would. I'll use the usual excuse - been busy.

We got a call from the Humane Society on Monday saying that somebody was interested in Lana again. We arranged a meeting for Wednesday and I had high hopes. The potential adopters were an older couple and they asked all the right questions. The best thing was that they don't have cats. Sounded like heaven to old Lana!
Unfortunately they were looking for a smaller dog and the old girl came back home with me. Can't say I was too sad...

Right now we're having a nice little ice storm and I can hear tree branches snapping every few minutes from the weight of the ice.
I just hope our power will stay on!

Update - just completed this post on Sunday, March 29th, because our power and cable did go out. We got our electricity and heat back about 2.5 hours later, but the cable wasn't fixed until now. We had called Cox and they said they'd send somebody tomorrow - Tom and I were perplexed because that meant we actually had to talk to each other instead of playing around on the computer.
We breathed a sigh of relief when we saw the Cox truck pull up today and the cable guy putting our cable back where it belonged.
What in the world did we do back in the dark ages when there was no internet?

Day 75 - Tuesday, March 24th, 2009

We're back! I'll post more tonight.

Day 61 - Tuesday, March 10th, 2009

Well folks, freedom is finally here - tomorrow we're taking off for Germany/Scotland and grandpa Tim is here to babysit.

Lana has become better with the cats, but there are still flare-ups; for that she's much better with Tom.She's realized that Tom's not such bad guy especially since his hands magically produce treats.

Josi has now started playing big-time with Sophie and it is so much fun to watch them!

We wish grandpa lots of luck with the circus and off we go!
We'll miss the little boogers, but it'll sure be nice to get a good night's sleep....





See ya in 9 days!

Day 52 - Sunday, March 1st, 2009

Hard to believe we've had the wooly mammoth for almost 2 months now!
She's filled out quite a bit and she's at an ideal weight. Any more gain and she won't fit through the cat door.
Speaking of which, she's still annoyed by the cats (and don't even ask them how they feel about her), but doing much better.

This, of course, has all to do with a shamanic healing seminar I attended last weekend. I learned some energy healing techniques, and if you now think I'm crazy then that has a whole lot to do with the fact that I am crazy.
Thank you for the great genes, mom and dad :).
Anyways, I also attended some animal communication classes (yes, pet psychic) previously and to make a long story short, I tried some of the stuff I learned and am actually seeing progress.
Josephine is less grouchy too so now I have to try it on Tom. Maybe we could say good-bye to those cancer sticks and happy pills!

The cats have been hanging out in the kitchen the past few days, and Lana still yaps at them occassionally, but is dealing with the situation quite well.
Outside, she'll still run after them, but won't do her obnoxious barking routine. Sometimes we can actually all co-exist in the back yard without having to wear earplugs.

What we're learning now is climbing the main stairs. I couldn't figure out if it was a physical or mental thing, but since Lana has shown no signs of arthritis, I'm thinking she's just never encountered a staircase.
We haven't tackled the problem yet, because it had never been a problem before, and we wanted to give the chihuahuas a place to retreat to since Lana and Josephine were a little on edge around each other.
Well, the past few nights Lana has been waking me up several times a night, having to go out and me having to carry her down the stairs. This had the result that I could now compete at work with my students in the lets-see-who-can-go-to-sleep-first-during-class contest.

I thought that Lana had temporary diarrhea and the problem would be over in a few days, but now I don't know if she really still has diarrhea or thinks going out at night to patrol is a poodle's version of hanging out at the local bar.
I've become so sleep-deprived that I just left her downstairs for the night, along with about 5 cozy dogbeds to choose from, but that just doesn't quite cut it for her.
Of course she wants to be with the rest of the pack and starts barking up the stairs about 3x per night. She never barks for long, just enough to wake me up and give me time to invent a few new curse words.
Anyways, I started the training today and whereas Lana's very cautious she's mastered 3 stairs today. I've read online that that's very good progress in one day so hopefully she can use the stairs by the time we go on vacation and grandpa has to come and take care of the brood.

Grandpa, if I were you, I'd be hoping real hard right now!

Day 40 - Tuesday, February 17th, 2009

Lana and Sophie at play.