Well, Prada left last night. Not on her own, of course. Lexi came by, had dinner, and took her home. She picked up Prada's cat, Rocco, on her way.
Midnight and Cinnamon seem to be a little confused. On the one hand life is back to 'normal' around here, on the other, there were three dogs for five weeks with the constant interplay of dominance, ganging up against the cats, play fights, real swiping of air borne treats, and so forth.
Midnight's eye-mouth coordination is superb. Prada could usually catch a treat if it was aimed at her mouth, otherwise she was kind of slow moving. Almost as if she said 'well, I want it, but it's beneath my dignity to make a big deal of it.' She's a very dignified dog. Cinnamon has the eye-mouth coordination of a rock. You can bounce a dog treat off her nose before she even opens her mouth. To make up for it she's a fast scrambler. If it gets to the floor, she's the first one there.
And her coat's ridiculous. For one thing, it's orange. Who ever heard of an orange dog?! For another it's so thick, with an over coat, an under coat, a loden coat, a fur coat. By the time you get down to the dog, she's as thin as a fistful of spaghetti. And she yaps. someone comes to the door, she yaps. The sun goes down she yaps. The cat walks by in the dead of night, she yaps. The sun comes up, she yaps. How excited are you at getting a message from the dog that the sun has come up? Every morning? I covered her sleep crate with a blanket: no joy. She still recognized sun up. Put her sleep crate in the basement, yap at dawn. Put her sleep crate in the basement, in a dark closet, made her wear a sleep mask: dawn yap.
Midnight could sleep through the SWAT team hitting the wrong address. Actually, if a burglar did get in, she'd probably lick him to death....
Anyway, I think the girls have noticed Prada's gone. Or at least something is different. Hard to tell. Dogs are so Primary Process in so many ways -- you know, they live in the eternal now. And yet you CAN train them. And they do remember places and people (and dogs, of course) that they haven't seen for a while.
Prada remembered Lexi. And unfortunately, Lexi remembered Prada: we put Cinnamon in Prada's sleep crate and put Prada's collar on her. When we took her out, calling her Prada, and put her in Lexi's arms saying "Here's Prada, it was nice having her, take her home." and tried to push her out the door with Cinnamon in her arms, Lexi didn't bite. Not even for a minute. Oh, how we hoped to get rid of that yapping, four legged, puff ball of a rooster. Robin was amused. I don't think she thought for a second that Lexi would take her dog. Oh, well. Carolyn and I thought it was worth a try.
