Jackson's Actions

All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, and desire. --Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC) <

What was I thinking?

Someone gave me a wonderful cat a couple of years ago. He is named Henry and is very attached to me, but oh, so catlike in his independence and demands. He weighs 19 lbs. and because my mother had a penchant for poodles, he now has a pink one of his own.



I actually never liked my mother's poodle. It was white and named Honeyboy. She kept him clipped in the frou-frou fashion of the breed, and he was jealous of me and would tinkle on my shoes, and bare his teeth if I sat near my mother. When he finally died they had him enshrined in a pet cemetery with a headstone. My mother asked to be cremated when she died, and so she was. As shall I. Poodles! Harumph!

But here I am in my dotage obsessively watching episodes of Cesar Millan, The Dog Whisperer, and yearning once again for dogs. I visited a friend with a dog named Lucy and I fell in love with her. Then local friends adopted a husky puppy and she is beautiful, so my yearning increased. I always said I would have to wait for Henry to meet his maker before I could have dogs. But last week (or the week before) I said to myself "why?" Why can't I have what I want when I want it? Am I the pack leader or what??! And so the search began. Internet sites, rescues, shelters, breeders--I looked at them all. I chose two and lost them to other adoptors. (Yes, I said TWO. I don't want one dog, I want two.) But finally in Waynesville, I found Sarge's Rescue and their local shelter (where they kill dogs twice a week) and I grabbed the dogs that appealed to me the most. Both boys. Both poodles.

Go figure.

Sugar is from Sarge's rescue. He's being neutered this week, so he doesn't come home until mid week. He's a little white poodle. He was found lost, in someone's barn, eaten alive with fleas, and covered in mud and feces, rail thin. The foster home has done wonders for him and his coat is starting to grow back. He's like a gentle lamb,
sweet as sugar.







Spice only spent four days in the shelter. He was picked up with a full coat of matted curly hair. He looked more like a curly Yorkie than a poodle. Somebody at the pound got the bright idea to groom him, however, so now he looks just like a poodle, in a color called "Cafe au Lait." Spice HATED the pound. In fact he does not like boundaries of any kind. He wants to be NEXT TO his person at all times, and do I ever have my hands full. When I drove him home from Waynesville, I hit a major traffic jam on Interstate 40. Like L.A. rush hour traffic, cars standing still. So I let Spice out of the too-small-for-him carrier. He leaped on my lap, and stayed there the whole trip home. (It took 1 1/2 hrs to go 22 miles) Now whenever we get in the car, he insists on my lap. This is dangerous, and I have yet to figure out how to break him of it. (but it's so damned cute!) He and Henry are NOT on speaking terms yet, so it's been a harried couple of days around here. I haven't had much sleep.






I've been buying baby gates to segregate the house -- cat on one side, dog(s) on the other. When Sugar gets home, it should get really interesting. Sugar and Spice have not met, and they both have turned out to be velcro dogs, so let the lap competition begin.

I really do need to get some sleep.

I'm going to need it.

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