Four Legged Holidays

For the first time, we did not kennel Buddy when we went to Cincinnati. We thought about taking him along, but we weren't going to be there very long and he takes up lots of room in the car. An opportunity to swap dogs with a friend presented itself and I went with it.

Buddy spent the Christmas at another house. He was great except he wanted to be in the dad's lap while he opened his presents. I love the Santa hat. Buddy looks to be enjoying himself.

The best thing about the swap was Buddy was at home when we rolled in very late from Cincinnati. It was wonderful to have him here and not have to pick him up from the kennel.

A few days later, Simba came to stay with us. It took Simba some time to get used to our house. He doesn't like slippery floors. We had to make a trail of blankets for him to walk on the hard wood floor to our bedroom. It was pretty funny. Eventually, he settled in. I snapped these to pictures of the two of them napping together. Simba was sleeping until he heard the click of the camera.


The "boys" got along fine and it was easier than I thought it was going to be.

We had a small mishap one night. A glass jar of salad dressing broke on the kitchen floor. During the clean up process, the "boys" were banned from the kitchen. Peanut initially kept guard making sure the dogs did not go into the kitchen. In the middle of the clean up, we grabbed the camera and snapped this one.

Peanut quickly abandoned his post. It looks like Buddy got bored too!

This was Simba's hang out. It was on the carpet and not the tile floor. He watched the clean up and all the kitchen activity from this spot.

We were glad they got along. This provides us an economical option if we don't want to travel with Buddy. Plus, it has to be lots better than being stuck in the kennel.

One funny story from Simba's visit - the Big Guy was out throwing the ball with the dogs. Buddy retrieves and loves the game. Simba gets the ball but doesn't retrieve. On one pop fly Simba caught the ball in his mouth. It was dark outside and Buddy did not see it. Buddy spent about 10 minutes running around the yard trying to find his ball. The entire time Simba was laying down with the ball in between his paws. Buddy finally figured it out, walked over to Simba, and looked up to the Big Guy as if to say - how do I get my ball? Buddy did not try to get it from Simba. He just stood there waiting. The Big Guy was cracking up as it took Buddy so long to figure out where his ball was. We were pleased he was not aggressive with trying to get it away from Simba.

The good thing was Buddy did not go through any withdraw when Simba left. We don't want a second dog and did not want him to get too attached.

Lastly, I finally went to a meeting yesterday investigating the process for Buddy to become a MidSouth therapy dog. Thanks, Deb, for putting the bug in my ear a few years ago! He needs some refreshers on his skills. I am going to start the process with enrolling in obedience for him. At this point, I think he can do it, but it will take some time and commitment to get him trained. When we make it through the final evalutation, I think the experience would be very rewarding. I firmly believe in the idea that not all medicine comes in a bottle. The affect a dog can have on health is amazing.