Sunday with Saoirse

The caption for this picture is “Really, Katie? A park that is JUST for dogs? I don’t believe you.” Saoirse has been with us a little over two weeks now and I already can’t imagine life without her. She is fairly nervous in general and scares easily, which is certainly understandable considering that until two weeks ago she was used in lab research. But everyday she makes a little bit of progress. She jumps on and off the bed and the couch on her own, she wags her tail at least a hundred times a day, and she’s gotten the treat thing down (when she first came, she would shake with fear when we offered her treats). She plays with Maizy, which is HILARIOUS. She gets all wild and dashes around the house with her ears flapping and her tail wagging. Maizy is very gentle with her and they really seem to love each other. Maizy’s not much of a snuggler, but Saoirse has started snuggling up to Maizy on the couch or the bed, and even tries to share the dog bed. Maizy tolerates it.

Last Friday, I took Saoirse to the vet so that they could check her incision, which ended up needing a little attention, get her a microchip, and one vaccine that she had not had before. I was bracing myself for a severely traumatic experience, but she actually handled the vet much better than expected. He recommended we brush her teeth (she has halitosis and some metal staining on her teeth and a chipped tooth from the chewing the metal bars in the lab), her ears could be wiped out occasionally, and her eyes were a little red, so he recommended some natural tears eyedrops to clean out any residue that gets in her eyes throughout the day. Otherwise, the vet reported that she was the picture of health.  

Yesterday, we took Maizy and Saoirse to the dog park and met up with Anika of The Vegan Score and her partner Kirby and Louise Bubbles (a hound dog who also came from the lab in the last couple of weeks). Saoirse was pretty freaked at first by the car ride and the park, but soon she relaxed and started dashing around, playing with the bigger dogs–Maizy and Lou. It was adorable. I think we’ll be going to the dog park with Saoirse more often from now on, now that we know she can handle it.

The feline family members are surviving the transition. Eden must have whacked Saoirse in the nose at some point with his razor-sharp claws, because she has recently become terrified of him and shakes when he comes close to her or even looks at her funny. Abigail is probably having the most difficult time (poor goose!). She is pissed! On Saturday, she caught my eye, made sure I was watching her, walked over with a flip of her tail to the dog bed, squatted down, and peed. Yep, she’s mad at me. She would really prefer to not have any of these other animals (particularly these dogs) stealing the attention that is rightfully hers. I make sure that we have a few good love/attention sessions every day–in particular, she loves to be brushed, so I brush her and brush her and she purrs and purrs. She’s just a very sensitive cat and needs to be tended to. In fact, she’s so sensitive, that she will only eat her food if we sit there and tell her how pretty she is when she’s eating.

Overall, things are going better than expected on the nonhuman animal front in our house. The house training is probably the most difficult thing (and this should not be down-played). We have cleaned up A LOT of accidents in the house as we try to find the right rhythm for taking Saoirse outside frequently enough and at the right times. But she seems to be learning and we all are SLOWLY getting the hang of it.   

Hope you all had a good weekend!

Follow