Wow, here's another first: Two days in a row now, Megan has allowed Stevie to have a little more room to "roam" while she's at work. Although Stevie is still quite small, she *is* growing. I suggested to Megan that perhaps some of her regression to and fascination with chewing on the newspaper might be because she needed a little more space. So Megan left the bathroom door open to the little hallway to give puppy a larger play area. Well, at least for now, it looks like it's helping. No pieces of paper shredded, no messes, no papers out of place (or potty out of place, either, for that matter).

It's as much a matter of trust for Megan and the dog as it is for Megan to trust the universe at large that everything will be okay while she's gone. Time will tell if Stevie is able to handle the extra responsibility maturely, but for now, it's all good.


By the way, Megan says she's going to get a custom bumper sticker made up that says:

"Dog is my Co-Pilot... and She's Blind."

Works for me!



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If she could somehow figure it out, Stevie is big enough to jump up on the new couch. But since she can't really "see", she hasn't put two and two together yet. So Megan will likely be purchasing a second set of doggie stairs, mainly so that she won't tear up the new couch with her little puppy toenails.

I'm pretty sure that it won't take her long to figure out the jumping up on the couch thing, but in the meantime, Megan has located some dog stairs at Walgreen's for about $10...

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Today was uncharacteristically cold and windy in most of Central Texas. But it was still nice enough for Megan and Stevie to take a walk over to the mailboxes and back. Stevie has been doing very well with small sets of solid concrete stairs around the apartment complex, but Megan still encourages her to work on "the big stairs" that go down to the ground (or up to her apartment, depending on where you are). These are those that don't have anything under them, they're not solid. Yesterday, Megan said that Stevie made it over half way up "the big stairs" before she stopped. She thinks Stevie got scared because "they don't ever end". Stevie's used to sets of two and three steps around the complex, and "the big stairs" are many times that. Hadn't thought about it, but to a blind person (or dog) that is a scary uncertainty. But Megan will continue to encourage Stevie on it and I have no doubt she will continue to improve.

Megan also got her new couch on Saturday, and she said Stevie's not too sure what to think of it. Now they will have more room to spread out in the front room.

Today, the weather is simply gorgeous: clear blue skies, not a breath of wind and sunny. They are going to visit The Stevie Tree this afternoon, and no doubt, will have a report on that.

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Well, either Stevie gets too bored while Megan is gone or she just loves to make papier mache balls. Lately when Megan comes home from work, she finds that Stevie has torn little shreds of newspaper and played with them so much, they turn into hard little pieces. When Megan arrives home, and once they've done their welcome home ritual (usually involving much running around, lots of puppy kisses and a little snack), Megan has to empty out Stevie's crate ("den"), take out the little pillow and all the toys and shake them out to get all the pieces and balls of paper out of it.

Megan is concerned that Stevie may actually ingest some of the paper, so she's going to try spraying bitter apple on the corners to [hopefully] discourage Stevie from chewing on it. We'll see...

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Couch shopping day. I stopped by to play with Stevie and discuss shopping locations with Megan before we set out in earnest. That pup is ALWAYS ready to play.

We were successful at the first [huge] furniture store we went to. Megan found a "daybed" type of couch that will a) fit in her living room, b) match her new rug, c) not be tall enough for Stevie to get under, and d) be conducive to naps and snuggles while watching tv. What more could ya ask for?

Then it was back to Megan's apartment for another round of puppy mania. We had stopped at PetsMart to procure another set of hard rubber keys because Stevie had figured out how to demolish the first set.

It was about then that Stevie discovered my cell phone. Suddenly the new keys, Lucy, and all the other toys ceased to exist. She grabbed the cell phone and ran with it into her crate (safe haven and cache for all important dog stuff, like toys and blankies). She dragged it around by the antenna, tried to chew on it, pushed the buttons so it would make noise (Megan said she was calling Mozambique...), and generally went nuts with it. When I'd take it away from her, she went crazy looking for it. She dug into my purse, my pocket and my briefcase to find it. And found it every time. It has a whole new set of scratches and puppy teethmarks to prove it.

Life is so simple when you're a blind dog and everything -- I mean absolutely everything -- is a toy. Check out the Gallery for new pix...

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