Megan only had a little time between jobs today, but she insisted on taking 45 minutes to go home and play with Stevie. They leashed up and walked down to the mailboxes. The regular mailman was there when they arrived. This is a guy who wears shorts all the time, unless it's like, I dunno, 30 below or something.

He's standing there, stuffing junk mail into mail boxes, talking to Megan. Stevie walks right up to him...

...snuffles him...

...and...

...starts licking his socks.

Needless to say, Stevie has conquered another heart.

Gotta love it.

G

On their weekday morning walks, Megan and Stevie usually go by an elementary school. They have made friends with two of the crossing guards. One of them is the mother of a former student of Megan's. She accosted Megan this morning and asked her if she would be walking Stevie by the school on Friday morning.

Megan said "Of course."

The crossing guard said, "Good, because my daughter didn't believe it when I told her you had a dog. No way, she said. Megan's not a dog person. She's a CAT person. So she's coming down here on Friday to see it for herself!"

Megan laughed and laughed at that, and is going to make *sure* she and Stevie see the crossing guard and her daughter on Friday.

I told her to be sure and let them know it's all my fault.



G

Megan called me tonight after we had already talked.

Megan: "You have to put this in the blog."

Me: "What?"

Megan: "This is so funny. Definitely blog-worthy."

Me: "Well, what is it?"

Megan: "I caught Stevie bobbing for sniblets."

Me: "Bobbing for sniblets..."

Megan: "Yeah. I've always suspected that she does it, but I've never actually seen her do it before. Ya know, sometimes I just toss food in there, and I'm sure some of it lands in the water."

Me: "Soooo... bobbing for sniblets..."

Megan: "Yeah. I don't even know how she knows they're in the water side of the bowl. She snuzzles around until they bump her in the nose and that's when she gets them. It's FUNNY!"

Me [laughing]: "Mine do that, too, but mine can SEE them. That is funny."

Megan: "So you'll put it in the blog, along with going up and down stairs."

Me: "Of course. After all, it IS all my fault."

Megan says the crate has saved her relationship with Stevie. The whole not knowing what she would come home to every day was so frustrating and was making her crazy (or crazier than usual).


She reported to me this evening that Stevie is beginning to go up and down The Big Stairs with less and less prompting and overt encouragement. She occasionally will hit her chin going down (have YOU ever tried to go down some stairs with your eyes closed???), but she is getting more and more comfortable and confident every time they do it.

We are contacting this eye specialist this week and hope to set an appointment for the initial exam soon. We are all curious to see what the doctor will say...

G

It's been a relatively uneventful week in the Megan-n-Stevie house.

Megan reports that Stevie is getting better every day about going *down* the stairs as well as *up*. Probably one of the funnier things that happened this week was when Stevie decided to rearrange her entire bathroom area... she pulled everything out of her crate, moved the crate and dragged everything through her water dish. They had been playing "Fetch Lucy" when Megan [who was no doubt multi-tasking] realized it had gotten strangely quiet and Stevie had been gone for a rather long time. Hmmm?


Stevie came out of the bathroom with her Pooh Bear blankie trailing behind her. Megan took it from her and noticed it was quite wet. At first, she thought Stevie had peed on it. But when she looked in the bathroom, she realized that there was not a speck of water in her bowl...

Dogs are nothing if not resourceful when it comes to entertaining themselves.


I'll be back out for a visit next weekend and look forward to detailing her progress on the stairs and other areas. In the meantime, of course, I'll post if anything else noteworthy happens.

Cheers!
G