lighter

so stella seems to have succeeded where odin* couldn't - slowly but surely she and  carly are building a solid relationship.  for the first time in really what’s been well over a year carly seems happy and my heart feels a ton lighter…can i get a woot woot?   

there’s a strange phenomenon going on here.  historically the idea of adding a new dog always came with equal parts excitement and apprehension.  there was always some fear of the chaos that would ensue - a new addition always meant a change of routine and some period of adjustment and tension.  i don’t know if one of these dogs is authoring and distributing a colella family manual to newbies or what but the past few new dogs have just waltzed right in creating nary a blip and stella is no exception.  beyond fulfilling her mission with carly, stella has been a remarkably easy fit.  

 *other than odin’s failure to bond with carly he has no other faults…except for being too fantastic for his own good.

a family enlarged

you might remember last september we adopted odin to hopefully be a buddy for carly and get her out of her depression.  for carly odin turned out to be a bust since he’s unwilling to play with anyone who’s larger than him.  that being said, odin is the greatest, most loving and congenial guy and he is unanimously adored here - he just wasn’t a fit for carly.  unfortunately after losing dooley, her running partner, carly seemed to go deeper into depression.  for the past few months i’ve been keeping my eye out for a special needs puppy who might fit the bill of an upper for carly.  at this point in the story i’m going to just cut to the chase and introduce the newest colella, estelle:

stella is around 4-months-old and we adopted her from snooty giggles rescue.  she was found unconscious on the side of the road and brought to a nearby vet where it was thought she suffered a head injury when she was thrown from a car.   once she regained consciousness a few days later it was found she was blind and deaf, presumably birth defects attributed to her being a blue merle.  however after some time with shawn, good food and supplements she has regained some sight and hearing.  it’s not clear how much of either she has (probably not much) but she is an expert at compensating and watching her you would have no idea she had any limitations.  she’s been with us for a week and she just slipped right in perfectly.  the truth is stella seems to think she is the shit…and we all appear to concur.  carly and she have played together a bunch and carly seems to be perking up a bit (hopefully that’s not just wishful thinking).  since stella isn’t scared of carly and seems to be a good fit for her at this point it’s really up to carly what develops and if she chooses to remain depressed i’m just going to have to deal with it.  i’m hopeful at some point we’ll come across another wolfhound who needs rescuing so she has a running buddy but for now that’s not in the cards (fortunately the breed is fairly well protected and don’t come through rescue too often). 

stella is our third addition to come from snooty giggles, prompting me to refer to them as the official adopter to the colella family.  again i have to thank shawn immensely for being willing to adopt to us since most organizations aren’t.  she was open-minded enough to hear past the number of dogs we have (and in our experience that is rare) and we appreciate it wholeheartedly.  

carly is a bit rusty at playing with a much smaller dog but she's getting her skills back...this is a snippet from one of their first action sequences: 

feeding frenzy

here's a little vine dave created from dinner one night:

to the people who inquired about our feeding ritual:  i promise i'll go into more depth than this!

which side are you on?

i bet if you did a survey of pet owners exactly half would say they allow their pets on the furniture and the other half would say they don’t.  growing up our family was on the “don’t” side which essentially led to me spending my childhood on the floor.  solely for this reason as an adult i’ve always been firmly on the “do” side. 

we probably have more couches and chairs than the average household.  if there’s a nook or a cranny where a soft, upholstered body-holder will fit we cram it in and the most comfortable seats can literally have a body on them for 18-24 hours a day. there is no piece in our household this is more true of than this chair:

for a few years this chair was carly’s bitch…she brought it within inches of it's life.  a few months ago we had it reupholstered and everyone was pretty much beside themselves when we took it out of the car to carry it inside:

for some inexplicable reason once the chair was recovered carly no longer had any use for it (i probably pissed her off with the flowers).  carly's loss was flanagan's gain and he swooped in and claimed it for his own.  he's spent much of his time troubleshooting new positions...so many that you should consider getting your scrolling finger ready as i've included a selection of his works:  

where does your household fall on this controversial topic?