Boat Tarp/New Puppy???

[Virgs Sew n Sew]

a border collie flash cross that living room, a paw strike to flip that plate onto the floor, and "IT'S MINE NOW---GRRRRR, BEAT ME LATER".

That is absolutely too funny.  Ours have never done anything quite like that.  That was one smart dog!

Our second and third saints were siblings.  Heathcliff and Gertrude (for all you Red Skelton fans).  Gertie had hip dysplacia.  We took her to K-State and had the left hip fixed but by the time it had healed, she was too old to get the right hip fixed.  With the help of good meds and a runner that I bought so she didn't have to walk across the vinyl in the dining room/kitchen (picture a huge country kitchen), she made it to about 5-1/2.  She was just a real funny dog and always had me laughing.  Heathcliff or Cliffie as he became in later years was always concerned about EVERY living creature.  We had an alcove on our back porch that birds would use to nest.  It provided great protection for the hatching eggs, but wasn't so great after they had hatched.  This poor mama bird sat on 6 eggs.  The nestlings were THE ugliest creatures I've ever seen.  At any rate, once they got old enough to get curious, wham they would fall out of the nest onto the ground outside the porch.  Cliff loved to sleep on that concrete back porch.  When he heard them squak, he would get up and beat on the back door with his paw until either Bob or I came out.  After the first occurrence, we knew immediately what the problem was and we would grab the rake that we had moved inside the porch for rescue purposes, scoop the bird up on the rake with the toe of our shoe and drop it back into the nest.  This went on and on for weeks.  This was right after we had Gertie put to sleep and were in the process of adopting Jimmy and Carly.  Those poor birds didn't stand a chance once those two arrived.  Cliff would still beat on the door but by the time we could react, one of those two would have already latched onto the bird and, I hope, mercifully put it out of its misery.  Out of all of those baby birds, only one had the good sense to not fall out of the nest after that.  He was still ugly as sin the last time I saw him.  A day or so later, both he and his mama had gone.  Bob took down the nest and got a piece of plywood to nail over the hole so we wouldn't have a repeat performance the next spring.  As it turned out, we added a garage with a breezeway that connected it to the back of the house the next spring, so the entire back porch roof came off.  I've never seen a dog more concerned about other living creatures than Cliff was.  Very cool to watch.

On the Fergie/Stevie front, I called the Humane Society yesterday and she sailed through her surgery with flying colors.  They open at 10 so as soon as Bob gets out of the shower, we are on our way to pick her up.  I'll try to get some pictures of her and Jimmy in the back yard this afternoon.  I do have one of our cats PO'd at me.  We bought a dog bed to put down in Sew & Sew, thinking that Jimmy would hang down here with Carly and I.  I worked for months and finally got him to take about a 30 minute cat nap on it and that was all she wrote.  He prefers his recliner upstairs.  Go figure.  So one of our cats, Michelle, decided it was a fabulous place to nap and she hibernates down here.  She comes up in the morning when she's sure that I've forgotten to feed them, meals and at bedtime.  Otherwise, she is generally sleeping on the bed.  Bob suggested yesterday that we might want to bring it up and put it in the living room, there's a great corner that it fits in perfectly.  He hopes that Stevie will find worth in the darn thing.  So about 30 minutes ago, I came down here and sure enough, Meechie is snoozed out on it.  I gently picked it up by a corner.  For a cat with no claws, she did a great job of hanging onto it.  It was practically perpendicular before she gave it up and rolled onto the carpet.  Too funny!

Virginia