Pet Day

Part of the 2nd grade curriculum at Blessed Sacrament is to write a mammal report. Each child gets to select their top 3 and the teacher decides which one. Quinn chose a platypus and really enjoyed the research, preparation and completion of his report. In fact, writing that report greatly increased his handwriting - pretty much the only thing we've struggled with this school year. But I digress, as a followup to the Mammal Reports they have a Pet Day where parents can bring their kids' pets to school for a blessing and a "show and tell". This day was supposed to be in April but due to this lovely Spring weather it was postponed a couple of times. So it ended up happening on Wednesday. I had told Quinn I would bring Callie. This sounded like a good idea in principle. It was all going fine, despite her usual pulling on the leash and wanting to be pet by all in attendance. I had tried to get her harness on but she didn't seem to want that -- turns out she just didn't want to jump in the car for some reason and I should have just left the harness on her because I had to bribe her with ham cold cuts. So anyways, Msgr. does the blessing on all the pets and then each child gets to introduce their pet to the class and talk a bit about it. Quinn does an excellent job describing Callie -- how old she is, what kind of dog, how she likes to play fetch and football. So all is going well until all the kids have introduced their animals (there were dogs, cats, kittens, turtles, frogs!) and then the teacher says the kids can mingle with parents and animals. And this is where it all goes south for me and Callie. One of the girls grandfather had brought their 95 lb Boxer and decides to let the girl hold the dog's leash. The dog and Callie start to tousle and the Boxer becomes a bit aggressive. Callie struggles to get away and does...which is good until I realize that her collar and leash are now in the grandfather's hand. And Callie is running in the opposite direction. So now I've got a dog who's scared and running around with no collar and I have no way to catch her. And all these cars are in the parking lot and pulling in. And all the kids start chasing her to try to catch her but that only makes her more scared. Not good. I see no point in running around after her and try to tell the kids to stop running too. Time seems to stall, it was probably only a few minutes before we finally caught her. She saw some boys, friends of Quinn's who have been at our house, and she laid down so they could pet her. And then I was able to catch her and get the collar and leash back on. I promptly put her back in the car so we could both catch our breath and calm down. So Pet Day was not much of a success. I think I should have brought Quinn's frog instead! And once again, I was reminded that Callie needs obedience lessons -- not really for the uncollared incident because that was the Boxer's owners fault (and he didn't even apologize) but for the time before when she is so hard for me to control on a leash. This time, I intend to follow through with the thought!

Fireworks Fear

I know, I am all over the place with these posts but you'll have to bear with me these first few days while I get all of my recent thoughts out into the blog world. The subject of this post is our most recent family addition, our golden retriever mix named Callie. Her full name is Caledonia and we got her from the Salt Lake County Animal Shelter about a month after we moved to Utah in 2005. So she's been with us for almost 3 years! She was 8 months old when we got her, and she is a great dog. I'm not sure why she was at the shelter but we are blessed to have her. She completed our family as we had spents months looking for the right dog for us. Anyways, the point to the story...

On July 4th, we left the house at about 9:45 PM to go see fireworks. We left the back door open with the screen door locked (we never do this, not sure why we did that night) and Callie was outside in the backyard when we left. When we got home, she was in the house. After initially worrying that someone had let her in, we found a gaping hole in the screen door and realized that she had run through it! She's not usually one to misbehave and is always content to be in the backyard so we weren't sure what happened. However, the next night it all came clear. She was in the backyard at night with the French door closed and some local fireworks started going off. We then heard her furiously scratching at the door to get let in. So it clicked --- she is afraid of fireworks! Strange since this is not her first fireworks holiday with us and we've never noticed her care about them before.

So now on to a new screen door and keeping her inside for the 24th (a Utah holiday that typically involves fireworks). And here's a picture to show you just how cute she is...