It was a hot day yesterday, about 93 degrees so although her ears are flapping in the wind she looks a little sluggish. I often think back to her days as a puppy when she would not lay down and just chill unless we put her in her doggy den at night to sleep FOR EIGHT MONTHS! This is no exaggeration. We had to barricade the living room to keep her contained, barricade the railing on one side of the living room where the stairs were to keep her from chewing on them and we had to put her in her kennel every time we had to get up to go to the bathroom or cook in the kitchen or just leave her alone for more than 30 seconds otherwise she would attack her bed, the couch or recliner.
All of that insanity ended in one day. One. It was the day she was spayed. I took her in the morning to the animal clinic and picked her up that evening where the staff told me they encountered a first with her. She was the first dog that ever managed to pull the newspaper on the bottom of the kennel up through the floor and shred it to bits. I didn't know whether I should feel proud that I had an obnoxious, overly energetic dog or embarrassed.
The nurse who brought her out said she had a remarkable amount of energy for just having had surgery. I almost cried when I saw my little puppy - she was walking very slowly and was listing a bit but when she saw me you could see her make an effort to wag her tail. It was so precious.
When we got home I laid Kea down on her dog bed and she stayed! She curled up in a ball and stayed! It was the first time she would stay on her bed and it was the first time she did not attack her bed! That was a real turning point in our life with a dog. No more constant dog watching.
Dr. Pamparo, her vet, one time noted, "Wow. She has a lot of energy." The vet who sees dogs all day long, 5 days a week, year in and year out said she had a lot of energy. Sheesh. The thing that really gets us is that the Kea we met at the kennel when she was 4 weeks old is not the Kea that we took home. Technically she is the same dog but her personality (or dogality) did a 180. Her litter mates barked and whined and licked us and pawed us and were overall very affectionate and friendly. Kea? Not so much. It took 10 or so minutes for her to even come over to us. The dog books warned us to not select the shy dog but she was the cutest of all the girl pups because she had the ginger coloring whereas the others were milky white. It took me a week or two to decide which dog I wanted, the friendly milky white one or the too cute shy ginger colored dog.
On our way home from Granite Falls (Timbuktu, Washington) we made her a snugly bed in her kennel in the backseat of the truck (oh how I miss that gas guzzling beast of a machine) - wait, we drove the Civic. I don't miss that car. It was nice enough but whatever... Kea whined the whole way home. In hindsight I should have held her in my lap; I don't know what I was thinking. Maybe I went into doggy mommy mode and I knew she would be safest in the kennel in the event of an accident.
She's such a sweet dog and I'm glad I picked the shy dog who turned out to be the worlds most outgoing dog and has the best doggy happy happy joy joy dance ever (that's my friend Krissy says, anyway).
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