(REAL Family Press - copyrighted 2004 - Linda Nelson AKA "The Lady")
File this in the folder marked “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” but I gave up trying to keep the name of “Diva” for the Chihuahua I adopted… Paul took to calling her “Peanut” and eventually it just stuck to her like peanut butter would… LOL…
And she is a little peanut, that’s for sure… She’s healthy now, but still a bit less than six pounds… I have to watch her blood sugar – it’s a Chihuahua trait anyway, but she’s so little, if she starts smelling something good and hasn’t eaten in awhile, she gets the shakes… The best thing for her is to have a few little meals throughout the day and then it keeps her blood sugar at the right levels…
The four of them have all developed their roles and places in the “pack” now… YogiBear is still the alpha in the pack… BooBooDog is still Paul’s baby doll, getting everyone else in trouble and then standing back, watching it all… Rogaine is a compulsive eater and you can’t leave food down all day – he consistently does his prowling of the territory, looking for something else to eat… Whether he is hungry or not… If it’s there, he’ll eat it…
And Peanut knows she’s special, here and there she tries to boss everyone else around – Yogi doesn’t take any of it, BooBooDog goes back and forth over how much she’ll take and Rogaine gives in immediately…
Peanut’s also gotten the nickname of “Mouth” ‘cause she’s the one that alerts immediately despite what’s going on… And for being a little itty bitty thing, she has one really, REALLY sharp bark that goes right through it – especially if she’s close by you… LOL… Like they say, little things in little packages!
Funny thing though – both Rogaine and Peanut have to be aside of me (or in Peanut’s case, on top of my stomach), Yogi, BooBoo and Peanut will sleep with each other, Rogaine will sleep with the twins… But Rogaine and Peanut will NOT sleep with their skin touching each other~!!... Seriously~~!!...
So if they are successful in their quest to sleep touching me like they want to, then they have to solve the problem of not having their skin touching each other PLUS they BOTH like to sleep TOTALLY underneath their blankees!... But if I can out-think them ahead of time and determine where each one is going, I can make everyone happy and make sure there is a single layer of material between the two of them… And that settles it, if you can imagine that~!!... That’s all it takes for them… LOL… They just refuse to touch either one when they’re sleeping aside of me… For the life of me, I don’t understand it although Des says I’m an “animal whisperer”…. There must be something in the pack hierarchy that doesn’t allow the two of them to sleep together touching each other I guess… LOL…
There are those that must think I’m a simple minded fool to be so close to my puppers… They are a tremendous source of comfort to me though… That I cannot deny and in fact, I guess I’m a bit proud of being able to count on their loyalty to me…
Just this morning on the way to school in the truck I told Desiree I’d love to have some kind of electrode that I could “plug into” with Peanuts that would enlighten me about her past – what she’s had to go through, what her life was like before I rescued her, what truly troubles her so that I will never do it myself even accidentally, what pleases her the very most, etc…
I have to do a lot of observing and 'sensing' to be with her where I am today… She came to us very damaged in so many ways… She jumped like a jack-in-the-box all the time at first… Loud noises scared her… Fast moves… Dog food was passed up for junk food (of just about any kind- she’s a major fast food junkie with the likes of greasy French fries, tacos, you name it)…
For weeks after she arrived here, I could not get a harness and lead easily on her... I got several bites just trying, until finally I got one on and left it on (with the lead attached) just so that I could catch her when I needed to!... More than once I thought to myself I'd taken on more than I could handle with this little pupper!... I 'felt' inside she wanted to react differently and I can't actually explain what I'm trying to say here, but it was like a '6th sense' about things... She just didn't know how to react differently to the circumstances and situations that were going on around her...
Peanut was also so tentative as far as new things she’d not experienced yet – they frightened her and you could never be assured she’d not jump out of your arms and head for the hills without a warning… If you were lucky (and there was no guarantee that always happened), she'd eventually come out from underneath a bed - only on her time and not yours - but her eyes always said she was scared out of her wits!
As they say, "we've come a long way, baby! since THEN and NOW... Anything is possible, if only you believe!
As Always,
The Lady
