The Story of Us or Why We're Thankful Every Day

First I want to thank Minna Krebs and Frankie Furter for starting this wonderful event. What with all the doings it's going to take a few days to catch up with everydoggy and kitty's stories but we look forward to it lots and lots. Now, onto ours.

It's my blog and I'm a dog so we'll do the doggies first, but there are also two kitties living here. In fact, they were here first, so we're including everyone in this post. Upon thinking it over, it's really only fair. But I'm first. 'Cause it's mainly my blog.

Me, Lola
I was surrendered, along with my last ever puppy and Puppy Daddy, to NYC Animal Care and Control in January of 2009 at about age 6. Or so they claim.  Is that a fine how do you do, or what? Take the best years of my life and then it's all "Thanks, bye!"  We were pulled right out of there by the wonderful Sean Casey Animal Rescue, located in Brooklyn, NY. Puppy had to be weaned and Puppy Daddy had to be neutered. Once that was accomplished they were adopted and then there was only me, Lola. I had to recover from birthing and nursing and then be spayed and then, of course, recover from that, so I wasn't available for adoption for a while.

Meanwhile, out in the wilds of Long Island, where the Dim Sum is not as good as in Brookyn, my future forever family was without a doggie for the first time in like forever. They'd been down to just one doggie and that was Alpha Mom's Shar Pei mix. He went to the Rainbow Bridge at age 15 in the Fall of '09. What was keeping them from finding a new doggie was that at the time there were three kitties and the oldest one was very, very sick. He'd had surgery for cancer, but the prognosis was that it wasn't all that successful and he had one paw on the Bridge. No one wanted to give him new challenges at that point in his life. But Blog Mom is just one of those Windows Shoppers, always poking around online and she was looking at Petfinder when she came across....no, not me. Violet. Violet was another Shar Pei who was at Sean Casey at the time. She was a beautiful leggy blonde of about two and a half. I won't lie. She was gorgeous. Blog Mom showed Alpha Mom and they both decided that they needed to go see how this amazing Pei would be with kitties. Here is a video of Violet and my good friend Mr. Casey. I do have to admit, it doesn't do her beauty justice.



Well, the Moms headed to Brooklyn the very next day and met Violet, who was everything her Petfinder listing claimed and more. BUT, Mr. Casey also told them about me, Lola. They met both of us and took us both for test walks. Blog Mom just could not make up her mind what to do. Luckily for me, Alpha Mom was more decisive. She thought that I, Lola, would be the right doggie for them. How right she was, too. Now, don't worry about Violet. She got adopted within mere days of that meeting and I moved out to Long Island, where they have big backyards but are short on sidewalks in some areas, seems to me. I met the rest of my new family, most especially Daddy, and settled right into my new home. My family thinks they are the luckiest people in the world to have found, me, Lola. It's worked out awfully well all around, don't you think?

My Little Brother, Franklin

Here's the part is about you, Franklin.

 Life was good being the center of the universe at my new, most perfect forever home. No one could really get over what a perfect dog and wonderful companion I was - and am, I might add. Still, Blog Mom worried that I missed the companionship of other doggies. She'd see me talking to my through-the-fence neighbors and wonder if I missed having another Shar Pei in the house, since I'd always been part of a multi-Pei pack. From where I sit and stay it's a trade-off. Being the only doggie can get a little lonesome once in a while but there are lots of perks to the situation, too. Still, Blog Mom couldn't keep away from Petfinder, although she and Alpha Mom talked themselves out of every doggie they considered for a long time. They did call on one but were told absolutely no kitties for that one, no way, no how. Sadly, that guy is still up for adoption months later.

Last July, however, Blog Mom saw one Shar Pei listed at our local town shelter and for some reason she couldn't talk herself out of this one. Why, I couldn't tell you. He was a most unpreopossessing Pei  in his photos and in pawson. He was too young. They were looking for a doggie who was around four years old, give or take and Franklin was under two and way too hyper. He was skinny and gangly and looked as if he'd been made up of spare parts from at least two different types of Shar Pei.  He hadn't had treatment for his Entropion eye problems when he was a puppy and it had become so advanced that the surgery he got at the shelter made his eyes....well...just not good looking. He was so much not what they were looking for that of course we adopted him the day we met him.

He had been surrendered too, like me. His family said they were forced to move and couldn't take the dog with them. He, like me, had been at the shelter for several months and he was so very happy to have a forever home again. I had to teach him about dog beds and playing with other doggies. Only in the last week or so has  he finally come to understand that if he gets up on the furniture, no one really minds. It took some time to undo his training in that area, but he finally gets it. He adores me, of course, and he loves the family and it really didn't take him long to settle right in and become a part of the pack. One thing that was interesting right away about Franklin is that he's a bit of a marker. Take him to the groomer, the vet, the pet supply place and he is very likely to lift his leg once. Then you tell him no and he usually gets that. But never once, even the first day, in this house. It's like he knew right away that this was his home.

 Kitties!

They say that you don't choose your kitty. Your kitty choose you. That was certainly true in the case of Happy and Simone. They were both here before I arrived. Simone is the most senior pet in the household. Stevie, the sick kitty went to the bridge a few months after I arrived. Simone is the tortie in the photo and is about 12 or so. Simone started out life living with other relatives, including a doggy and another kitty. They had to move in here for a while, also long before I arrived on the scene. Simone, for reasons best known to herself, but possibly including the bulldog she lived with, decided that she preferred our family and when her family moved on she made an independent decision to stay here. Not up for negotiation, either.

Happy, the gray guy in the background was abandoned when tenants in the house next door moved away. He was sooo upset, I'm told. He wouldn't come in the house for the longest time. He was scared to death of the other animals. My humans fed him in the garage, but other neighborhood cats would come and eat his food and he was getting awfully skinny. Finally the family insisted that he move inside the house and he just had to get used to it. He certainly put the weight back on. That was several years ago. No one really knows how old Happy is either, but probably around seven or so. He's a very nice kitty, but a big scaredy cat and not too bright. We don't mention that in front of him, of course.

Now, I'm sure you realize that it's against the kitty code to be thankful. They'd get drummed out of....something...if they expressed gratitude, but I think they're both pretty happy to be part of our family. Except they'd both like to be rid of Franklin, but you have to take the good with the bad sometimes. Not that Franklin is bad, exactly, but he has not accepted that they're not going to play with him. Actually, Simone does kind of play with him in a claws out, hissing and yowling kind of way.

That concludes the condensed version of the story of all the four leggers currently residing at Chez Lola. We hope you enjoyed and now we are going to try to get out there and learn more about your homecoming stories.

Frankie's Name Game - Or How I Became Me, Lola

Today is the day to play Frankie's Name Game. First off, I guess I have to tell you that my name story is not so very fascinating. I'm mostly playing because, being a dog, sometimes I indulge in a certain pack mentality and the rest of the pack is doing it, so...well, there you go. For one thing, none of our current household pets were named by any of our current humans. In fact, Blog Mom tells me that the last pets that they got to name themselves have since passed on to the Rainbow Bridge of disorders connected with old age. The only member of our household who was named by anyone in our household is my human brother, who is 31 and he was named after Daddy. Boorrring.

As I've mentioned before, I'm a graduate of the Sean Casey Animal Rescue in Brooklyn, NY. I got the name "Lola" while I was matriculating there. There are some connected issues that are interesting to me and my humans. I wasn't surrenderd to Sean Casey. I was surrendered to Animal Control with my puppy and Puppy Daddy. We all went to Sean Casey right after that. Sooo, all the Sean Casey people had was my Animal Control records and the name on my paper from them was "Juson". I never answered to that, though. They thought maybe they weren't pronouncing it right and maybe they weren't, being that it turned out that French was my first language and they didn't know that. But really, it's only two syllables and there are only so many ways to say it. There was this man working there who loved me a pawticular lot and would take care of me whenever he was there. Spanish was his first language and for whatever reason he thought that Lola was a good name for me. I guess I did, too, because I answered to that very quickly. When the Moms came and adopted me they thought I'd been through enough changes and didn't really consider changing my name since I seemed OK with it. They did try out the name that was on the papers, though, and once they figured out that I was a French speaking dog they tried it with the best French accent they could. Still nothing. It was like I'd never heard it before. So we stayed with Lola, which is fine by me.

The Moms think that maybe the people who surrendered me weren't my original owners at all and my name (and maybe my age) might not have been right. One of the reasons that they think this is that on the same paper with what was supposed to be my name was the information that I was in dirty condition when I was surrendered. Now let me tell you that a dirty Pei is an uncared for Pei. We need our ears cleaned and also we tend to have skin issues. I know I do. If I'd been neglected for most of my life I would have been a mess by the time I got to rescue. As it was, all I really needed was a bath (ugh). As my new humans got to know me they had to conclude that I'd spent most of my life being well cared for. I was affectionate, friendly, confidant and  optimistic. I wasn't fearful or defensive at all. I seemed very familiar with all manner of creature comforts. I was very well behaved and socialized. Once the language barrier was cleared up it was apparent that I was trained, too, at least in basic commands. Sooo...what happened there? I guess we'll never know for sure, but it is the subject of a fair amount of speculation around the house.

Now I'm going to stay out of the heat and just read everydog's entry in the Name Game for awhile.

All About Us

Lots and lots of furiends have done this quiz by now. Too many to list here, I think. I figured I'd better get on it now, and then there was some discussion as to whether the cats were going to do it, too. The blog is called Pei Days, not Pei and Kitteh Days, but the majority ruled in this case and we're all doing it at once.

This is our life

THE BASICS

Name and Age: 
Lola, 7ish years old. I could definitely pass for 5.

Simone: 12 or 13, we think

Happy: Could be about 7. No one really knows.

Breed: 
 Lola: Chinese Shar Pei

Simone: Domestic Short Hair mix of some sort

Happy: Domestic Short Hair mix of some slightly fluffier sort

Nickname(s):
Lola: Good Girl, Baby, Sweetie, Sweetie Pei, Beautiful Girl, Woojy Boojy Boo Boo Lovey Doggy, assorted others

Simone: Simoney Woney (Daddy only), Psycho Cat, The Evil One - Those last two aren't used quite so much lately, as she's either mellowed, stabilized or is just getting old, but are listed here for historical value.

Happy: Hapster, Captain Happy, Happles, Hapless, Doofus

The picture of feline grace - not so much

 Where’d ya come from?

Lola: Brooklyn, most recently graduating from the Sean Casey Animal Rescue

Simone: The people with the bouncy bulldogs

Happy: The eviction next door

Favorites 

Toy 

Lola: Right now I'm enjoying working with a rawhide chewy. I chase it around a bit, capture it and only chew it briefly, so it  lasts quite some time. Of course, you can't go wrong with a tennis ball either.

Simone: She likes to play with things that are dangled for her, except for anything that's purchased for that express purpose. Those things, she just ignores. Also likes long stringy things that pose a danger to her insides.

Happy: Not big on toys. Eat. Sleep.Eat. Go in and out. Eat.

Snack:

Lola: Cheese!!!

Simone: Whipped cream

Happy: Whipped cream with a salmon chaser

Human Person:


Lola: What an undiplomatic question. Well, if I must. Alpha Mom is called "Alpha" for a reason. 'Nuff said? I do have very close and individual  relationships with each of my humans. There's plenty of Lola love to go around.

Simone: Daddy

Happy: Daddy.

We call Daddy the cat whisperer.

FUNNY STUFF

Worst Habit: 
Lola: I don't have bad habits. There are a couple of areas of legitimate disagreement between the humans and myself, such as the optimal speed for a walkie, but my speed towing is not a habit. It's a choice. Same goes for my early rising. That's a lifestyle choice that I make for myself and Alpha Mom. And the picky eating thing? Just being a matter of taste is all. Nope, no bad habits that I can think of.

Simone: Shredding. Furniture and occasionally flesh. Thank Dog her aim is getting worse and she's slowing down a bit. Doesn't help the furniture, which is a lost cause anyway, but it's much safer for the rest of us.

Tortitude - she's got it.

Happy: Well that in and out and out and in thing that he does every night is a bit annoying to everyone, but get this - after he's asked to out for the zillionth time the humans kind of stop jumping right up when he meows. So, he starts scratching. We all assumed he was scratching at the door and no harm seemed to be done. After all, who doesn't scratch at the door once in a while? I think we all do that sometimes. Well, they just recently noticed that it wasn't the door at all. It was molding around a doorway NEAR the door and he's just about destroyed it. Everyone was pretty surprised that a cat could even do that.

Most Embarassing Moment

Lola: I don't really have a lot of those. I'm not what you'd call a goofy doggie. But there was that time when I yelled at a doggie (in retrospect, a rather small doggie) who I assumed was bothering my neighbor Sambuca. It turned out that he was a friend of hers. A quite barky friend, but there was no threat. Go know.

Simone: She doesn't do embarrassment. She's got tortitude.

Happy: Well, just off the top of my head, there was the time last week when he fell off the kitchen table. For no apparent reason. And then he did it again the next day. You know what? They don't always land on all fours after all.


Family dynamic (this is a question for those of you with more than one animal in the house. i.e. who is alpha? who is the cuddler? who is the naughty one? etc. I just want to know how you fit into the family!)

We are all alphas in our own minds. We're a bit cautious about each of the others, too. I'm the only dog at the moment and I'm not terribly hierarchical anyway. It's live and let live as far as I'm concerned. Simone is a tortie. She feels she was born to be an alpha. Then there's Happy. He doesn't care about being alpha, I don't think, but like anyone, he's not crazy about being pushed around. As he's entered the prime of his life and Simone has gotten her AARP card, he's getting to be the one who stays on the table with the food on those days when they aren't into sharing space. She probably should have been nicer to him when he joined the family. On the other paw, she still rules Daddy and Blog Mom's bed.

Now I have to say that we're all cuddlers in our different ways, but never, ever with each other. We cuddle with humans. I'm never naughty. As to the kitties, I'll let the shredded furniture and molding speak for itself

Your humans’ FAVORITE thing about you!:

Lola: Well, that's hard to say. Is it my impeccable house manners and the peace of mind that my humans enjoy because of them? Or is it my sweet and loving disposition and mostly calm temperment? Or could it be the intelligence that helps me to be a true companion so they  know they can not only tell me anything, I'll give them good advice, too? I think it's the disposition that they love best, although really I'm a total package, so it's hard to say.

Simone:  Blog Mom and Daddy like the way she snuggles, especially when she sleeps with them at night. She licks their hands, too. They like that and after all, I can't be everywhere at once.

Happy: He might not be the Einstein of the feline world, but he's really quite a nice cat. Blog Mom also thinks he has a pawticularly pretty face and handsome whiskers, but that's kind of superficial, isn't it?

Cats! Part Deaux

It's about time I finished introducing my cats. When we left the subject of our family felines Simone was living happily ever after with Stevie, and only incidentally, Blog Mom and Daddy. The only fly in that ointment is that there is no "ever after" in real life. Things change in good ways and bad ways and just in ways, all the time. One way that things changed was that Happy joined the family. He had already been named. He certainly wasn't happy when he joined this family.

Happy in a more characteristic pose

Happy was a victim of a landlord/tenant problem. One of the neighbors had been renting an apartment in his house and then he had to sell in a hurry and the tenants had to go, also in a hurry. Seems they forgot to pack the cat and Happy was left behind and considerably traumatized by this abandonment. That's not hard to understand.

Of course, once my family found out about it Happy was invited to stay with us. Or ,rather, them. These events predate my arrival by a couple of years, at least. He didn't want to come in for the longest time. He liked people, but was terrified by other four leggers of all types. If Happy had been listed on Petfinders it would have said that he'd prefer to be an only pet. The only thing is, with the number of cats available for adoption at any given time, and Happy being a gray tabby - not exactly a rarity - it was thought that he might be better off learning to adjust than to take his chances at the local shelter.

They let him stay in the garage and fed him there for a while, but Alpha Mom took him to the Vet for a check-up, shots and a neutering right away. Seems his original people had forgotten to do that, too, and he was left free to roam around the neighborhood creating more homeless kitties. After a time the humans here decided that the garage thing wasn't working out so well. It was constantly filled with other cats, most of whom had homes of their own, and they were eating Happy's food up. He was getting skinnier and skinnier. They insisted that he had to at least eat inside. He did and gradually got used to things like soft furniture and warmth on cold days and such and got big and plump and healthy.

Here's what Happy is -confused. Since he was outside for a long time he's allowed out when he asks. He just pretty much stays around the yard anyway. He has a strong urge to go out at night, too. As soon as it's dark he starts asking to go and will get kind of crazy if someone doesn't let him right out. The thing is, he's neutered. He doesn't need to hunt. He doesn't really know why he's out there once he's let out. So as soon as the door is opened again he comes back and has a bite to eat. And then he starts yowling and insisting that he must go out again. With the amount of coming and going in this house that whole process gets repeated at least five different times during the evening.  It's fairly entertaining, actually.

 Simone, of course, wasn't happy about Happy joining the household. She isn't exactly a "more the merrier' type. She tried to say she wasn't having it, but found out that she didn't quite have that kind of authority. She had to adjust, of course, but she's still probably less than thrilled about the whole thing. Stevie didn't mind. He never really minded anything. He didn't mind my arrival either. The others did, of course. But they had to adjust to that, too. Now, with the exception of an occasional brutal attempted attack on me, we're rubbing along all right, I think.

Parlez Vous Francais?

 There was some interest in comments when I mentioned that French was my first language, so I thought I'd expand on that a bit today. For the first two days here in my new home no one really noticed. Most of the verbal  interaction involved expressions of delight with me, affection for me and trying to get me to eat, which I wasn't doing until they got it right. I had no problem with that kind of communication. I could get along just fine in informal conversational English - and Spanish for that matter. And of course, tone of voice and body language tells a dog a lot, too. So, no problems thus far.

I arrived on Saturday evening. On the first Monday of my new life, the Moms decided that they should take me to work with them just this one time. They didn't have a crate set up,  Daddy wasn't feeling well enough to be company that day and they didn't really know if I suffered from separation anxiety or anything. The Moms work at the same place, but they have very different jobs. Alpha Mom's seems much more interesting. She runs around to different offices and talks with all sorts of people all day and never seems to stop moving. I think she's kind of Alpha at work, too. Blog Mom mostly just stays in her office working on the computer and all that's on the screen is mostly numbers most of the time. Really not interesting to watch. So guess who I got stuck with?  Right. Blog Mom and they closed the door to her stuffy little office to boot. Something about dogs being against the rules.

After a while things got too tedious to bear, so I got up and put my front paws on the arm of Blog Mom's chair and gave her a very appealing look, complete with cocked head. She got all melty, of course, but clearly intended to keep on doing whatever she was doing, so I became teensy bit more assertive. You know - just a little nudge, nudge with the paw. At that point Blog Mom said something I didn't follow, but she seemed to expect something of me. I had no idea what and, well, I was new and all. I might even have been on some kind of probation for all I knew.  So I gave her a sincere stare that was intended to say, "I'd really like to help you out, but I have no idea what you're saying.." We went through this back and forth a couple of times and then light dawned on Blog Mom and she started Googling. After a bit she turned and said, "Sientate!", which it turns out is ""Sit" in Spanish. Blog Mom had realized that a girl from New York City might speak any one of about a gazillion languages at home. So, of course, she tried Spanish first as it's almost as common as English in the area. But that wasn't it. So she though some more and she thought that she knew a number of people from Haiti who spoke French and that they all either lived in Brooklyn or had a lot of family in Brooklyn. So she said, "Assis!". And I sat right down. A little experimenting showed that I would also obey "ici" (here, as in "come here") and I was pretty good at "attend" (stay). I do not "au pied" (heel) in any language.

Blog Mom put a list of doggy command translations on the refrigerator and everyone has tried to learn them. They've done pretty well, but the other day Blog Mom slipped and said "Sit" and I sat! She was so surprised once she realized what happened there. I am picking up English commands without even being asked to. But not "heel". Never, ever heel.

Waiting for Daddy

Blog Mom thinks it'll be another day or even two before Daddy can come home. Unless his insurance company insists. Insurance companies like to speed recovery along, she says. He's no longer in danger, but he's "experiencing some discomfort". The Moms tell me that's a  medical term meaning, "searing, agonzing pain." Waiting is hard. It just doesn't seem quite right, when we're all sitting around the living room but Daddy's not there. Or even in the house.

I thought, though, that this might be a good time to explain more clearly our living arrangements, as I am somewhat of a time share dog. I mention all these people, but I don't think I've ever clarified things. Alpha Mom and Blog Mom are sisters. Blog Mom, as you probably have gathered is married to Daddy. Our house is divided into two apartments, both of which are mine. Alpha Mom couldn't live without a dog, but if not for other people in the house she really wouldn't be home enough to have one and that would never do. She works until quite late and she has an active social life, too. Also there's the brother that is too big to live home. He has his own place - a very nice stall and a bit of paddock at a horse barn nearby. His name is Sgt. Pepper, but you can all him Sarge.Everyone does. She has to go see him on the weekend, too. I would have gotten to go by this time in the Spring if not for all these other things that have been happening. I'll go soon, though, and bring back pictures. I promise.

Daddy is home most of the time, normally, and Blog Mom works but she usually gets home at a reasonable hour - like in time for dinner, so I usually spend the day with Daddy, give Blog Mom some quality time when she gets home and then dine with them. And these days  my human adult brother is often around and also the rescue bass player who we are fostering, but he's on tour at the moment.  I sleep upstairs with Alpha  Mom and hang out with her as much as possible unless she's doing something too boring, like talking on the phone. Then I go downstairs to see what's doing. Everyone is always glad to see me, whichever floor I'm on.

I am quite strict about one thing. Evenings are for the whole family together. If Alpha Mom is ready to watch some TV or read in the evening we must go downstairs and do that in Blog Mom and Daddy's living room. Daddy is usually lying on the couch and Blog Mom has her chair with the laptop and sometimes a cat, Alpha Mom takes the loveseat and it all makes a sort of semi-circle around me, Lola, on my downstairs bed. It's a very warm, safe and cozy feeling. So, right now, the semi-circle is broken and that doesn't feel so good.

A Home for me, Lola!

After the Moms decided that they wanted to take me, Lola, home there was still quite  a lot to do before we could be on our way. There were references to be checked. Lots of them. I was put in the holding cell - a crate in the Hamilton Doghouse, which is the pet supply shop connected to the Sean Casey Animal Rescue.

I sat quietly, waiting to see what would happen next. The Moms use their time productively, purchasing a leash and collar and some chew toys and less productively, buying a humongous bag of the healthy kibble I'd been fed at the shelter. I guess they didn't realize that I was thinking to myself, "If this works out, as Dog is my witness, I'll never eat kibble again!"

When we were free to go  there were still good-byes to be said. My mustached friend was there and we needed a few minutes. He got a bit leaky, but he was happy for me, too. He told the Moms that they'd made the best possible choice. Then, after a little walk we piled into the car. At that point I got a rare case of nerves, so I threw up on the back seat. It was quite theraputic. I felt much better after that. We drove for what seemed like a very long time. We drove right out of Brooklyn!

Well, this certainly seemed to be for real. Time to start bonding! I moved up between the front seats and offered prodigious licks to both Moms. That was well received so I pretty much kept it up the rest of the way home. Those were two damp Moms by the time we got fifty miles out on Long Island. I helped to drive, too. Do you know it turns out that putting the car in neutral while moving on the Belt Parkway is not such a good thing? Well, it's not! I'm sure because I did it several times and it seemed to cause some alarm each time.

 We finally arrived at the end of the earth my new home. It was dark by the time we got there. Of course,  tired as we all were, I still had to start learning about the household right away. Blog Mom and Daddy live downstairs and Alpha Mom lives in her own separate apartment upstairs. I sleep upstairs with her, but I live in both places. I'm the upstairs/downstairs dog. Keeps me busy. There were three cats, none of whom seemed overwhelmed with joy to meet me.

I sniffed around  to get the lay of the land. A lot of animals and humans have passed through this house. I can tell you that for sure. Something appeared to be missing, but then the Moms produced a dog bed and everything fell into place. Especially me.

Daddy was nice but not well. He's got something wrong where he'll be in pain and hardly able to walk for days at a time. When that's going on he doesn't even want to eat and he stays in bed or lies on the couch and tries to sleep as much as he can. Then he'll be OK for a few days. I think it must be similar to Swollen Hock Syndrome. Well, he wasn't feeling well at all that night, or for a few days afterward so it took a little longer for us to really get to know each other but better late than never. He says I'm the best dog he ever met. Before I moved in he really wanted a Golden Retriever. The Moms realized that a Golden wouldn't be practical given the facts and circumstances of their lives, but Daddy was stuck on the idea. Now he never, ever mentions wanting any dog other than me, Lola.

There are two other young human adult males who weren't home that first evening. There's Rob, who is Blog Mom and Daddy's adult offspring. Then there's a bass player who was without a home and I guess my humans are fostering him until he finds a forever home. They both come and go a lot, but Rob's home more than he used to be, which is a good thing. It might be because of me. All I'm saying is that Rob was a touring musician for most of a decade. I move in and after a few months he wants off the road. Just connecting the dots is all. They're both quite pleasant and when they're around I try to take them for walks as often as I can.

And that's the end of the happy ending and the beginning of a wonderful life. Humans like to say that when one doggy door closes another opens. I wish it was always true for everydog, but it's certainly been true for me, Lola.

A New Pack for Me, Lola

Once our family moved into the Sean Casey Animal shelter things moved quickly. Puppy Daddy was neutered and it wasn't too long before a human came along and took him home. Puppy was weaned and of course he was adopted soon. To see a Shar Pei puppy is to want a Shar Pei puppy, is it not? I was used to having the pups leave. I'd paid my way by producing puppies all my life, and Puppy's new human got quite the bargain. To get one of my purebred pups for just an adoption fee? Unheard of. It was harder to lose Puppy Daddy. It had never occurred to me that we wouldn't always be together, but there it was. I still had to wait until I could be spayed. I'll tell you that was kind of a relief. Being a mother is wonderful but enough is enough. It was time to stop.

I was sad and confused, but I do think that it's important to keep a positive attitude and life at the shelter wasn't all bad. Things could have been a lot worse.  Quarters were cramped and we had to live in kennels, but after all it was New York. Lots of New Yorkers live in tiny spaces - like this couple for instance. We didn't stay indoors all the time. People came to walk us and play with us and I had a special friend who always made sure he spent time with me when he was there. I called him Mustachio for obvious reasons. He had a huge mustache. I like a little fur on a human. He gave me my name, because even that got lost in the big move. I liked it fine. "Lola" suited me and I decided to start answering to it right away.   The worst thing about the shelter was the food. It was healthy and gluten free, wheat free, allergen free and taste free. Not once did they serve anything au gratin. I like au gratin and al fredo. Anything that involves cheese and no veggies. Kibble is not cuisine, but I supposed they were doing their very best.

It seemed to take forever, but the day finally came when I was ready for adoption but there was one obstacle as I saw it and it came in the form of a leggy, cream dilute bitch named Violet. Now, I don't normally have any problem at all with self esteem, but one must face facts. If someone came looking for a Shar Pei, Violet was going to be chosen first. She was taller, she was platinum blonde, she was two and a half to my six years old. She was a knockout. And frankly, I was not at my best, having just finished weaning a pup. I mean, thing were sagging in places that Violet didn't even have yet. Don't take my word for it. See for yourself in video Mr. Casey made to help humans find Violet.



If there's a video out there titled "Lola Needs a Home" I have yet to find it. And it was Violet, not me, Lola, who was featured on Petfinder.com. And it was Violet's photo that brought the Mom's to Brooklyn on April 4th last year. Blog Mom saw it first. She knew that Alpha Mom wanted a Shar Pei  or Shar Pei mix more than just about anything. Her Shar Pei mix had crossed over at age 15 a few months before and  the whole family was sans chien for the first time ever. The thing was, one of the cats that lived with them was sick. He was recovering from surgery at the time, but the prognosis was bad and they were trying to wait for a dog until....well, you know....so as not to give him new problems at the end of his life. Well, Violet's photo convinced them that they could make absolutely sure that she'd be fine with cats before they took her home but they just had to go see her. And they did.

It was a busy Saturday afternoon. I remember that much. They came and took Violet out of her kennel and she was gone for a while. After a half hour or thereabouts I heard a bit of a ruckus upstairs. The sounds told me that it was Violet, scoring a B- at best on her cat test. Then Violet came back in and Mr. Casey took me out. It seems he'd told them about me, Lola right away and they just couldn't make a decision without at least meeting me. I took them for a walk around the block and then we did the cat test and I believe I scored somewhat higher than Violet. Then it was decision time. It was really Alpha Mom who had to make the call. If it had been left entirely to Blog Mom we'd all still be standing there on that sidewalk in Brooklyn. She isn't one for snap judgments, to say the least.

So the choice was made and they chose me, Lola! I was getting adopted before Violet! It's funny how things work out. You just never know. Oh, and don't worry too much about Violet. The Moms did and kept track of her. She only had to wait a few more days for her humans to find her.

Coming soon: Coming home for the first time

Shelter From The Storm

Well, I guess it's time for some of those biographical details. I'm going to do it in a few posts here and there for now. This one is about my stint at the shelter.

My world  turned upside down in January 2009 when I was surrendered to New York City Animal Care and Control along with some of my family. Quite the come-down, that was. We were born to the purple (purple tongues, that is) and now we'd been "surrendered" like an illegal handgun or something. I was still nursing my last puppy and Puppy Daddy was with us, too. I know other dogs have had much worse experiences than we did, but it was scary there for a while. The humans at Animal Control were kind, but it's the things you've heard about it that get you. Like "three days and they toss you off the Rainbow Bridge." Turns out it's not quite like that and there are other resources for animals who are deemed adoptable. We were so deemed and were whisked off to Sean Casey Animal Rescue, as I mentioned in my first post. There, we'd have all the time we needed to find suitable humans of our own. Although it's not meant to be anydog's forever home, it's a very special place in a lot of ways and I can show it to you  right now. This is a video clip of the shelter and Mr. Casey himself on a local news channel telling all about it :



That clip only captures some of the atmoshpere at the place. For example, in the Hamilton Doghouse part there were three ginormous turtles just walking around free. I guess they didn't have to worry about them running out into traffic.

Coming soon: I get adopted