Neighborhood Watch

Our front porch is one of our favorite aspects of this house. And by 'our', I mean all four of us. Not only do Scott and I love to sit out there and drink our coffee in the morning, or eat lunch together in the sun, or enjoy wine with the neighbors in the evening, but Lucy and Ariyah love that thing just as much as we do, and possibly more.  It runs the length of the front of our house and was very poorly built.  All of the rails are unequally spaced and the nails are rusting out of it.  The dogs know where the wider-spaced rails are and their favorite thing is to stick their head right through those and watch the world go by

This allows them to get as close as possible to all dogs walking by on the sidewalk, which of course makes them believe their obnoxious greetings are even better.  Every now and then they forget about the particularly narrow spacings when they're really excited, which causes momentary panic as they twist and turn, trying to free their big heads.  No worries - they've never been permanently stuck and I've stopped being concerned about that.
We put up a baby gate to when we first moved in here so that we could leave them on the porch unattended if we're home.

This way they can bask in the sun for hours at a time, wrestle noisily, and chew their rawhides to their hearts content, without getting my floors any dirtier than they already are.

This is their daily routine when we're around, and it hasn't changed much in the three months we've been living in this house.  Until this morning.  This morning Lucy decided that resting her chin on the lowest bar of the railing no longer provided a satisfying enough view of the neighborhood.  No, she needed to be even higher than an entire 8 feet off of the ground.  So, as I casually glanced out the window while walking by this morning, I had to do a rapid double-take, and then burst out laughing when I saw this:

Lucy sitting in our chair

No guilt. No shame.  Just enjoying the view like she's a human.

She is such a mess.

Our Week So Far:

1. Still no news on surgery
2. A good amount of time spent doing this:  

   3.  Scott spending everyday at the hospital - and still working on the house upon coming home.  

   4. Usually doing this:

Or working on wiring.....                     .

   5. Lucy's surgery for her destroyed knee finally scheduled - let's hope Scott's surgery day doesn't end up at the same time.

   6. Refer to #1 again.  

   7. Trying to stay on top of school and get as many projects out of the way as possible before I'm caring for two little post-op patients here at home in the next few weeks :)

We're trying to be patient - the waiting is the hardest part.  However, we know that everything happens for a purpose and the timing will be perfect in the end.  It's just difficult to sit on this side of it all, not knowing, while everything gets decided upon and worked out.  

Kissy, kissy

Ah, HA!  Victory.  I finally caught this on video!  The girls will lay around and do this at least once a day.    

They love sharing leftovers.

The ears usually get included as well, but they must have be clean enough for today.  

Adjustments

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at how crazy our house has gotten with two dogs.  Lucy passes gas in front of guests without guilt, snores, drools and doesn't wait her turn.  Yet we can't stay mad at her for more than two minutes because she is SO cute.  Her mannerisms are hilarious!  Ariyah doesn't know what to do with her half the time.  She has really started making herself quite at home, especially in the last 48 hours.  She is testing the limits to the max, attempting to see just how far she can go.  Her and Ariyah are T.R.O.U.B.L.E when unsupervised.  So far they have pulled pillows off of the couch and bed on separate occasions to use as they please (luckily I have caught them both times before any holes were chewed).  Yesterday I left them in the bedroom for three minutes and Lucy had her way with the corner of a text book of mine that was on the floor.  That bought her a nice time out in the kennel.  Our backyard is fenced in (thank you Jesus) so we can put them out there whenever we need to.  Well, last night we caught Lucy trying to dig through to China in a little patch of dirt between the concrete patio and the brick wall.  That bought her a good scruff-grabbing scolding from Scott and a bath (which she didn't seem to mind - her feelings cannot be hurt...so we thought).  Until she punished us for her punishment by leaving a gift of poo in the dining room five minutes later.  This bought her a good forced inspection of said mess and 15 whole minutes in the kennel.  She finally calmed down after that and just wanted love the rest of the night, which we will happily give.
So far today she has chewed off the end of a football (much to Ariyah's grief as that football is one of her favorite toys), attempted to chew up Ariyah's dog bed, and been caught in the act trying to steal pillows again.  All of which have gotten her good scoldings and several nice shots in the face with the spray bottle of water (which she detests).  It's like watching a naughty toddler!   She has had a year of bad habits instilled in her from her previous family that we are gradually going to have to train out of her. We have faith that she will learn and this is just an adjustment period that any adoptive family would have to go through, but still.  It's work!

          My Nursing Textbook....