So uh, how’s it going? Well…

She barks, she pees, she chews on everything.

So, pretty much like we expected.
We’ve got a lot of work to do, but we’ll get there.

Eventually…

It’s a good thing she’s cute.

Notes: Recognize her bed? She stole it from Walt. He did not seem to mind.
Don’t yell at me. We do not keep a pinch collar on her all the time, only for training sessions. It looks big and mean, but it doesn’t hurt any more than a nip from her mama would. Probably less.
Bit of trivia: Pepper is named for Iron Man’s assistant: Pepper Pots. Newt has been into superhero movies for months.

I tweeted this last night:

Unrelated: I’m still new enough to twitter that saying things like “tweeted” makes me feel simultaneously like a hipster, a poseur, and a jerk. Kind of like when I spell poser “poseur”.

Meet Pepper.
Pepper is a five month old pound puppy mutt. Her ears, legs and tail are all too long for her body. She appears to be the strangely shaped love child of some sort of terrier and Santa’s Little Helper.
We love her.

Pepper arrived at our local humane society a little over a week ago. She and 13 other small dogs were slated to be put down at a terribly overcrowded animal shelter in L.A. Sadly, they had needed to euthanize 20 other dogs that week. Lucky for Pepper (and us) our shelter had extra space and arranged to have those otherwise doomed dogs transported here.
Public Service Announcement: Please spay or neuter your pets and consider adopting from animal rescue shelters. Thank you.

Unrelated: Newt has recently gone No ‘Poo. Look how wavy her hair has become. I love it. She does not.
So anyway, back to Pepper. Newt picked her out, but I don’t mind telling you, I had some misgivings. (Refer to my above tweet.) Besides the fact that puppies are a lot of work, I didn’t think I was ready for another dog. It felt too soon. I didn’t want to try and replace Shasta.
But Pepper is not a replacement Shasta. She’s herself: a great combination of smart, eager to please, playful and snugly. And also exceedingly difficult to photograph due to her, “I never stop moving” nature. Sure, she has some things to learn, but don’t we all?

Unrelated: I seem to have trouble staying on topic today. Is puppy-brain contagious? Oh look, a squirrel!

This is our dog, Shasta:

She’s quirky.
She tends to view anything left on the floor as a bed.

She doesn’t mind being the baby in our family.

(usually)

Or losing at every game she tries to play.

She’s even pretty good about letting us use her white fur for an occasional canvas.

Shasta has only been ours for a little over three years, but we couldn’t love her more completely. When she first came to us she was already an adult, about eight years old. But she acted like a puppy. In short, she was a pain in the butt bundle of energy. If the door was open, she’d run away. Sometimes she’d even jump over our backyard fence (six feet high) to go off on her excursions. She chased squirrels. She dug moles out of the ground. When we went for walks, I could never keep up with the pace she wanted.
Two summers ago, she jumped that fence one last time. Six feet is a huge jump for a little dog and she injured her neck. She recovered, but became cautious and slow. And then arthritis crept in. Her eyes are beginning to dim. She prefers sleeping to any other activity. She can’t even make it around the block without needing to be carried. Sometimes Shasta goes for a little stroll across the living room. When she gets to the wall, she stops and seems to wonder what to do next. She’ll stand there staring at the wall until one of us goes over and moves her.
It has happened so quickly, but she is an old lady now.
A few weeks ago she developed a UTI. I took her to the vet where they prescribed an antibiotic, but warned that sometimes UTIs in older dogs result in incontinence.
Last week she started peeing all over the house. We took her back to the vet. After a round of tests, it appears as though she has another UTI. She is now on another round of antibiotics and seems to be doing better.
She has slowed down considerably, but seems happy. Even so, these incidents are a warning of what is to come. We have never had an older pet. I am having to face things I don’t want to. Someday, perhaps not too far off, I’ll have to ask myself, “Is it time to let her go?” How will I know?
I think we all are sensing the clock winding down.
Newt was brushing Shasta the other day and putting all the loose hairs in a ziplock bag. Sometimes she likes to start strange collections, so I tried to nip that one in the bud.
You are not keeping a bag of dog hair. That’s garbage.
She replied: Mama, I want it to remember Shasta by, someday when she is gone.
I gave the bag back to her, with a teary smile.
Yesterday Shasta surprised us by chasing a cat from our backyard. I haven’t seen her move like that in so long. It gave me hope. Hope that maybe we still have lots of time, maybe even years, but I just don’t know.

In the meantime, we’ll try make her as happy as she’s made us, and watch and pray to know when that’s no longer possible.