Assigned Seat

Sometimes it seems that we have assigned seats in the living room. Ken and I have our Lazy-Boy recliner chairs near a reading light and across the room from the television. Rudy has his quilt on the floor on the left side of Ken's chair. Emme loves the end of the couch. She sits there and watches everything that goes on in the neighborhood. In the evenings after the drapes are closed, she often abandons her perch and comes to lie on top of a quilt on my legs. But during the day, she is often in her assigned seat, watching. If I can't find her, I know where to look. That is her spot.

Plays Well With Others

This weekend we had three visitors: my son, daughter-in-law, and my grand-dog, Lolly. Emme loves all three of them, but Lolly is a favorite and a mystery. Emme is not used to playing with other dogs. She and Rudy live in the same house, go on rides together, nap near one another, eat sided by side, but they don't "play" much together.

Lolly is a French bulldog and as cute as she can be. She is very used to playing with other dogs because she frequently goes to a doggy day care in Washington DC, her hometown, so she plays well with others. Emme on the other hand has few opportunities to play with anyone except Rudy. Rudy is older, slower and not really into playing. His thing is fetch. He'll fetch until he is warn out, but he doesn't really "play" with Emme. So having a dog her size who wants to play is a new experience for Emme.

Actually all three dogs did quite well. Emme and Lolly generally avoided Rudy except when Ken was playing fetch with Rudy. Rudy would chase the little red football; Lolly would chase Rudy, and Emme stayed on the porch and ignored them. She is not into fetch. In her estimation, if you are silly enough to throw a ball away, you can just go get it yourself.

Lolly wanted to initiate a game of "You chase me; I'll chase you" but Emme didn't seem to know the rules. Instead she would look expectantly at Lolly, scratch her back feet on the carpet, and bark. This must have meant something to her, but all of us, including Lolly, were not sure what it meant. It probably was "I really want to play, but I am not sure how to go about it."

So all three dogs spent the weekend together and had some variety of play with one another. If they had more time together, I am sure Emme would have figured out how to play more. But it was a fun weekend anyway.

New Do

Emme has a new do. She went to the groomers yesterday for the first time since her surgery and I asked Kristie to cut Emme's coat short. I wanted to even out the growing in rectangle on the back of Emme's neck with the rest of her coat and I wanted to fix up her ears which I had trimmed myself when the hair was getting caught in the stitches. So Emme is much shorter but she looks so cute. I never have Emme cut in a "show coat" but I keep her in a puppy cut. It is much easier to care for.

Emme's parents are both beautiful show dogs and I have seen them all styled and blown out for dog shows. They are absolutely stunning. Emme never looks like her parents but she looks like herself. Which is great.

She Moans

Emme has this habit of moaning quietly when she is being rubbed or petted. It is a soft and happy sound something like a cat purring. Rudy does a similar thing when he is being very still and being petted. He has a specific deep breathing sound that he makes, his version of purring. Last week when Emme was not feeling well, she didn't moan when we rubbed and patted her. Now that she is well again, she moans. What a good sound. The sound of a contented dog.

Back to Normal

It has been a week since we took Emme to the vet and discovered that she had an ear infection. After days of salve in her ear and a few baby aspirins, she is well again and things are back to normal. It was disconcerting while she was not feeling well and she was isolating herself from us by hiding under pieces of furniture. Some "under" is okay. Being "under" all the time is not.

She is not shaking her head or showing any signs of distress. She is back to eating again. For a number of meals this past week, she refused to eat. Ken or I would give her kibble, one piece at a time, and she would eat part of her meal. That is past. She is eating well.

She is back to her early morning routine: playing "Go Get" and loving up Big Mama Gorilla. It is so nice having things back to normal.

In Hiding

For the last two days, Emme has been hiding all over the house. She has been spending almost all her time under something. It started on Sunday at the lake house. When Emme wasn't under the living room couch, she was under the butcher block in the kitchen or under our bed. Her behavior was very strange. Although she does like to be under things occasionally, for the past two days it was constant. Instead of coming to sit beside one of us or on our laps, Emme was under something, hiding out. When we returned to Wooster, Emme spent her time under the cabinet in the dining room or under my desk in the sewing room. This morning as soon as she got up, she immediately ran to the sewing room to hide out under my desk instead of making a bee line for the back door to go out to the yard. She has not been interested in playing or running around. She was reluctant to eat although she did finally eat very slowly and finished all or most of her meals. But something was just not right.

So we made an appointment with the vet this morning. Emme has an ear infection. I guess I shouldn't be surprised because she just finished a round of antibiotics after her surgery and that is often when a yeast infection sets in. So the vet pulled some hair from her ears and we have a salve to put in her sore ear. For the next day or two she is to have a baby aspirin twice a day. We are already seeing a change. I hope she is back to her old self quickly. I miss the real Emme.

Rub My Belly

Emme had her stitches taken out yesterday and it was no big deal. Her incision has healed nicely and the vet cut the stitches out without causing Emme any pain. Emme can now roll over on her back to have her belly rubbed.

When the incision was new, Emme would begin to roll over and as soon as her incision touched the rug, she would immediately hop back up. I know it was not comfortable for her. The last few days she did try to lie on her back to turn her belly up for rubbing. That still must have felt strange with the stitches in and she would hop up quickly. Now the incision is healed and the stitches removed. She can lie comfortably on her back. Belly rubs are now in order. Life is back to normal.

Sisterhood of the Seven Stitches

After Emme had surgery last week to remove her cyst, her incision was closed with seven stitches. Last weekend I had an unfortunate accident with a broken glass on the kitchen counter. I went to the emergency room and come home with seven stitches in my right hand to close the cut. Both of us are healing nicely.

I love Emme all to pieces but I was not planning to bond so closely with her that we each would have seven stitches at the same time. Hers come out later this afternoon. Mine come out on Friday morning. But until then we are alike, each with seven stitches.

Some Time in the Crate

Emme continues to heal and has spent some time this week on her own in her crate in the family room. On Wednesday, she was in her crate for two hours while Ken and I took a "Spring Walk" at the Secrest Arboretum. What a wonderful resource right in our community. It has the reputation of having the best crab apple collection in the world as well as some of the most respected scientists. The Arboretum is lovely in all seasons and was especially beautiful this week. Emme seemed to handle the crate time with no damage. She will sometimes scratch herself if she is not monitored but there were no scratch marks on her skin when we got home.

Then yesterday she was in the crate while we went to Akron to bottle our wine. A few weeks ago we went to a wine making place and mixed up two batches of wine, a White Cranberry and a red Mixed Berry. This week we bottled and corked the wine. It is actually quite good.

So things are almost back to normal. Emme has an appointment for Monday afternoon to have her stitches removed. Yeah!