Pet Barometers

Pets really are the barometers for your emotional life.

When I was at my lowest, depressed and anxious and crying all the time, my animals moped around the house, acting like the world was ending. In their defense - and mine - we were all grieving over the loss of Percy, at least partially. Tess and Puckett missed their friend, banishing themselves to a corner of the room to sleep and lie around. Puckett was the least active, as I still occasionally made Tess go out for a walk on nice days. We didn't have the same pep and joy in our walks though. I walked because it was necessary. Tess sniffed and peed on trees and bushes, but her heart didn't seem in it. Puckett spent hours curled up in the same spot next to the heater, emerging only to use the box and eat, and even eating seemed like a chore for her.

It wasn't until I had the wild hair to adopt a puppy and kitten that sort of pepped everyone up, mostly because they had no choice. Joy bounced around Tess constantly, trying to get her to play. She was like a pogo stick: "Pat attention to me! Pay attention to me! Pay attention to me!" And what could poor Tess do, other than sigh in resignation and play with her, knowing that otherwise Joy would never leave her alone?

And Spencer, well, Spencer just adds all kinds of life. Willow was never a fan of Percy's and I don't think she was too heartbroken over his death. She did, however, pick up on the mood of everyone else in the house and spent most of her days sleeping, like Puckett. She was more inclined to eat and sack out on the bed with me, because Willow is clingy and not an isolator. Puckett's isolating worried me a bit. She's normally a confident, happy, social cat.

Here came Spencer, and suddenly Puckett is acting like a kitten again. Even Willow has started playing with him if he's not too pushy and insistent. The three of them chase each other through the house, they roll across the floor sounding like they're killing each other in play fight, and suddenly at night I have three cats on the bed instead of just one. Puckett nestles right up beside me by the pillows, Willow sleeps at the foot of the bed, and Spencer sacks out on my legs. He eventually goes downstairs or under the bed (or joins Joy in her kennel or Tess on her dog bed), but at the beginning of the night everyone is all huddled together

I am no longer in deep depression and the animals aren't either. And my new relationship is so different from the last one, I don't think any of us know how to navigate it besides Joy and Spencer.

We're all happy and it's weird.

I hate to say that, really. Have I been so jaded and treated badly that I no longer recognize what being happy or feeling joy is?

Maybe that's why I named the puppy "Joy" though "Jaws" really seems to suit her better. If she was bigger I'd call her the Meg. But I digress.

My therapist is having a field day with me because I told her a few months ago that I was done dating. I'm not putting in the work anymore, and I have no energy for the endless online surfing, meeting for coffee, navigating whether we like each other, and going out on actual dates. The thought of going back online exhausted me, and I kept coming up with reasons not to. I still wanted a relationship, but if I was going down that road again he would basically have to show up on my doorstep, because I'm not looking anymore. Also my sex drive was in the toilet anyway, so I wasn't really motivated to go out looking for someone.

A month ago, he actually did show up on my doorstep. I was working in my front garden, pulling weeds and getting the bed ready for planting. This car rolled up, a guy got out, and at first I thought he was lost and asking for directions when he walked up to me. Instead he told me he'd seen me walking my dogs in the neighborhood because he works just down the street, and then I did remember exchanging a few words with him a couple of times in the early mornings when I walked. He asked me to dinner, and it took me a second. I almost said no, but changed my mind and suggested we meet for coffee instead. See how we like each other.

Turns out we like each other a lot. And the animals like him too. He even likes the cats. And I like his dog (those who remember the last one's dog will probably find that humorous) and his dog likes me. And the dogs all like each other. We took them for a walk the other day, all three of them, and Tess came out of her shell like she hasn't in a couple years. She ran and played and there was a bit of tension when she made sure that the new dog understood she is alpha, but after that everyone was friends. Joy will get along with anyone as long as they don't try to eat her. She just wants to play. Tess was a puppy again. And as far as her personality, the new dog is sweet and bouncy, energetic but disciplined. She actually listens. And God love her she stays off the furniture. Mostly.

I don't really have a physical type when it comes to men, but if I did, he's it. Short and cute but built like a little Jason Statham. I like them short. I've never been one of those women who refuses to date a guy under six feet tall. I'm more like please be under five feet ten!

And he's so nice. It's weird. I'm used to getting yelled at for the smallest, stupidest little things (like not texting first in the morning), or remaining friends with the Cowboy, or heaven forbid allowing the Cowboy to do stuff to my house like he has been for years, and this guy is just like "Cool." About everything. Nothing fazes him. The other night he turned to me and said "I like you. You make me happy." And I kept waiting for the "But" like "But I feel like I'm doing more work in this relationship than you are." Nope, he stopped talking after he said I made him happy and kissed my nose.

If Tess feels like a puppy again, I'm pretty sure I feel like a teenager again. We kind of make other people sick. We're that couple making out on the sidewalk, or holding hands in Walmart of all places, or gazing into each others' eyes at the wine bar, and I have never been into PDA's. Will it last? I don't know. I hope so. He says he plans to stick around for a while, if I let him. He's pretty easy to be around. He doesn't get mad easily, he's clean, he likes things neat, he doesn't drink. I'm a skeptic by nature, but he seems to be just what the doctor ordered. I have no complaints so far.

Cats and books! Happiness abound.

How Quickly Things Change

A line from the TV show, Frasier, leapt out at me when I was binge-watching eleven seasons in a depressed state of "My life will never be exciting again." Frasier was going through a similar phase of being stuck in a rut while his brother, Niles, was married to Daphne and expecting a child, and Marty was dating beautiful, younger Wendie Malik, having the time of his life. Marty gave him some fatherly advice with, "Take it from me. Just when you think nothing exciting will ever happen to you again, that's when it does."

And I have to say, he sure said a mouthful.

Status quo for me for the longest time was go to work, come home, veg out in front of the TV or read a book, repeat. I shook things up when I adopted Joy, but my life revolved around her for several months as I got her into a routine and tried to keep her from eating the house. While she's not as destructive as some dogs, (I know someone with a pit bull puppy the same age who tore the dryer door off. I mean, just ripped it off. And someone else with a lab puppy about the same age who was so totally out of control they had to rehome him) the list of things she's chewed are as follows:

• Two mugo pines
• A tree sapling
• A dog bowl
• Piles of mulch
• One of the outdoor water bins
• Two planters
• Multiple dog toys and bones
• The lawn chair the Cowboy made for me a few years ago
• The corners off the doghouse

But I have to say, she has never eaten a shoe, she never got into underwear, she leaves my stuffed animals alone (Tess was obsessed with stuffed animals when she was younger), and she has never chewed the furniture.

Spencer makes up for that by scratching the furniture, but I digress.

It is a full time job caring for a puppy.

Joy is nine months old now, and she is a holy terror. She is deep in her teenaged rebellious phase to the point where she no longer listens to me or Tess. She has regressed to jumping on the door and me, barking, throwing a tantrum whenever her paws get wiped, not waiting for her release word to eat, and generally ignoring me and my commands as if I'm just the annoying mother who doesn't understand what it's like to be her age.

She's right, I probably don't. I don't remember what it's like to be in my twenties.

Thank God for that.

Joy goes to puppy class, she gets regular walks, she has rules and discipline as Cesar Millan suggests, and Tess has been showing her teeth an awful lot lately. Nothing works at the moment.

Needless to say life is very exciting again.

I came home for lunch the other day, and went outside to check on the dogs. I am now used to the piles of mugo pine branches littering the yard. The harsh winter destroyed them anyway, so I'm going to dig them up and replace them with rose bushes. Meanwhile they are Joy's favorite chew toys. This particular day she had somehow managed to drag one of the large water bins (filled with water) across the yard, and stuffed it in the dog house. I actually stood in the yard, looking for the bin, turned around and saw it just sitting in the dog house. It took a minute for my brain to register, "The water bin is in the dog house. What the hell? How did it get there?" It is wider than the doorway to the dog house. I have to say I'm impressed with the determination and problem solving skills it takes to shove a large heavy duty plastic bin into a dog house.

Then there was the weeklong phase of eating straight up cat litter out of the box. Now, every dog I've ever owned has gotten in the cat litter at least once to eat cat poop. That's just what dogs do. Joy, however, didn't care if there was poop or not. I walked in the bedroom one evening (I keep an extra box there for Willow, Miss Fussypants), and the entire box had been sucked clean of litter. Joy trotted out of the bedroom and immediately barfed it all back up again on her dog bed. Piles of it. Just clumps of straight up litter. That could not have felt good coming back up. She spent the rest of the night hacking and wheezing because my cat litter is made of grass seed. It's not as dusty as some, but it's coarse and I'm sure it couldn't have felt good.

So what did she do two days later? The exact same thing. Hoovered the box, and immediately, not even thirty seconds later, barfed it all back up again. Second time's the charm. She stopped after that. Hasn't bothered the box since.

Her new favorite thing to do is trap Spencer between her paws and chew on his head. This isn't as bad as it sounds. She doesn't hurt him, and there is no blood or yowling. He eventually has enough and escapes, hiding under the bed. And what does he do five minutes later? Comes back out and lets her trap him again. It is a little disconcerting to walk into a room and see a German shepherd with a small black cat between her paws just going to town on his head. If one didn't know any better one would think she was killing him.

It's like Tess and Percy reincarnated. Spencer is almost identical to Percy. He looks like him, minus the fangs. Instead he has a kink in his tail. He plays with Joy the way Percy used to play with Tess. And he's such a little asshole. Scratches the furniture, flings litter everywhere, plays with his food and leaves a trail of kibble all over the kitchen floor, poops in the box as soon as I've cleaned it, lies in wait for Willow and pounces on her when she walks by. The difference is that Willow isn't afraid of Spencer like she was Percy, and gives back as good as she gets. Then he races through the house like a herd of stampeding elephants, chirping and trilling. He is absolutely the cutest thing in the world.

I feel like maybe they've opened the door to allow new and different things to come into my life. I'm baking and making chocolates again, and while it's not going very smoothly, I will be selling some at a craft fair. I'm working on my novel like a fiend. I've started drawing and painting again. I've even started dating again, but that's a story for the next blog, as it's kind of a fun little story on its own.

This morning, my new friend walked into the hallway and said, "You locked that cat in the kennel with Joy last night. They're both just staring at me." I started to laugh. Spencer likes to slip through the small hole in the dog kennel and sleep in there periodically, but he's never gone in there at night with Joy before. The two of them just sitting there staring out of the kennel was just so funny, and it confirmed that adopting Spencer was the right thing to do. I adopted him for Joy and they are clearly starting to bond.

And yes, everyone is as codependent as ever. Last night I had two cats on the bed, one under the bed, Joy on the dog bed at the foot of the bed, and Tess sacked out beside it.

Things really can change in a blink of an eye.

Joy and Spencer both in a rare state of being still.

I absolutely love this image of Willow.



This is my favorite picture of Tess and Puckett. My two old girls, enjoying some bonding time.