Bow Tie o’ the Day is helping me out on this gray January day. It brandishes colors galore, which even seem to be perking up our little Skitter. Skitter’s still hibernating most hours of the day, but when she’s awake her eyes are brighter and she is more playful than she was last week.
Skitter’s version of “play” means she lifts each front paw to the height of her head, usually one at a time, and then does KARATE KID “wax on, wax off” motions. I do the same back to her with my arms and hands. We can do that back and forth for quite a while. Skitter always starts our play session. I always end it when I decide we’re both tired of it. Seriously, that is the extent of how Skitter wants to play. We can play it when we’re right by each other or when we’re across the room from each other. I’ve tried to teach her other tricks and games, but she’s shown no interest whatsoever. Hey, whatever works for Skitter.
I’ve had plenty of dogs throughout my life, and they’ve all been like little kids. They’ve romped; they’ve carried on; they’ve gotten into things they shouldn’t have; they’ve wandered off; they’ve followed me around; they’ve ridden in the back of my truck. Skitter, however, is more of an infant. She doesn’t do much, but she’s really cute. I had no idea what we were getting into when we got her. I had no idea how needy she would be, and how weird her idiosyncrasies are. I’m still completely overjoyed we rescued her. But after five years loving her, it is still difficult for me to leave her at home alone. I worry she’ll be frightened. I leave the television on for her when I leave. If the television is on, she knows I’ll come home. Smart mutt.
I wrote a few days ago about how it seems to happen a lot that you’ll have no appointments on your schedule for days or weeks at a time, and then you schedule one thing, and suddenly more things come up that must be done on that same day. Crazy. That sort of happened when we got Skitter.
Within 24 hours of getting Skitter, my SWWTRN broke her hip which meant I had to go from Centerville to Provo to the hospital a few times to be with her. Then I went back to Centerville to get packed up to go to Delta for the Christmas break, which we did. That would have been plenty to fit into those hours.
And then suddenly all the legal machinations deciding the fate of gay marriage began happening, and we had to hurriedly drive from Delta through five counties to finally find a courthouse willing to marry us before a scheduled court hearing decision that might have put the kibosh on that idea. (Thanks, Davis County.)
Of course, we had to take Skitter in the car with us on these journeys because we had just gotten her, so she was discombobulated and scared and not one bit used to us or either of our houses yet. Centerville to Provo, to Centerville, to Provo, to Delta, then north through five counties, to Farmington, to Centerville, to Delta again. Talk about an overloaded itinerary in a smidgen of time. Whew!
If Skitter hadn’t been weird before she rescued us, all that traveling and excitement in that short a time period would have made her that way.
And I swear I had not one thing scheduled on my calendar for the next month.
What a week that was!