The Dog Lover

I refinished the floors last night and today. I could not bring myself to sand out the purple glitter paint created by my dog Maggie when she inadvertently walked through a Girl Scout fabric paint project and tracked paint across the floor. So I put high gloss polyurethane over purple glitter paint in the middle of the living room floor to preserve her smeared foot prints. It is a Midwestern 21st Century version of Mexican tiles with coyote tracks. I am sure it will irritate the next owners of my house to no end.

You'll notice that I could not get a picture of the purple paw prints without my newest dog insistent that she know what is going on.



I am not sure how I have been in denial about what a Dog Person I really am.

There are dogs that work their way into me. Lady was one. Anja was one. Maggie was one. And I struggled long and hard with my next dog and ended up with this big galumph from the pound. No one really gets why I picked her. My veterinarian literally stepped back the first time that she saw her. I have sixty pounds of slobbering labrador who follows me everywhere and she has actually been a really nice replacement for a 7 pound shih tzu who couldn't climb steps anymore. I have decided that it doesn't make sense to anyone but me and that's ok. This dog meets my emotional needs and if I am honest it is because she is interested in everything that I do.

My dog trainer is Lincoln's Dog Whisperer and he identified my emotional issues with this dog on the first night that he met us. After four weeks of lessons, when she gets in my way, I know how to tell her to lie down and stay and I do it with enough authority that she actually does it.

She's not Lady or Anja or Maggie. But I identified the same type of devotion and love in her.