The Jealous Nala

Our family loves animals. There isn't a dog we don't stop to pet or a puppy we don't ooh and ahh over. My kids try to make pets our of earth worms or lizards and we love to watch the squirrels and chipmunks in the backyard. We also love the school pets, and our school has plenty. We've fostered the rabbit, Spice, the hamster, Hammie and the guinea pigs, Kuawahi and Lily. We loved them so much we would all get teary eyed (well not my husband) when Monday rolled around and we had to take them back to school. In fact, my daughter just got a hamster for her 10th birthday. 

How is Nala with all these critters you may wonder. The only real trouble she had  was with  Spice the rabbit. We think in her mind, rabbits belong outside. They're for chasing, not looking at in a cage, especially in her sister's room. She whined and paced and there was a bit of growling and lunging when she got the chance. With the others, she only displayed a little passive aggressiveness veiled in a vague interest. And though she seems to like our hamster, Neville (we are Harry Potter fans), a little of that PA behavior came out tonight. 

A brief history -usually she goes in my younger daughter's room and chews something. Now Nala is not a chewer, never really had too much trouble in that area, but when she feels left out, she chews. And only my younger one's things. Here's our theory, Nala knows my husband is the Alpha, I'm Beta, next is my oldest daughter, than in Nala's mind, herself. Last on the dog totem pole is our Little One. Nala has chewed a little mermaid's head off, a purse and a necklace, all belonging to Little One. And she doesn't even act ashamed. 

Tonight we had friends over and were playing with the hamster, not Poor Nala. So Nala chewed something else, not in Little One's room, but it was her dress all the same. 

What exactly is she saying? "Hey look at me, I'm more important!" is pretty much how I translate it.

Sorry Nala, we love you most but that's life. 

Makes me wonder what she's really imagining she's chewing while we're playing with little sweet hamster...

Nala and Lilly

Well, I said I was busy, but this is ridiculous; my goal is much more than one blog a month! We'll see if I can do better this summer. Speaking of summer, it's here and so nice, so relaxing - afternoons at the pool, sleeping a little later, and evening walks. We love after dinner walks, especially Nala. She jumps around when she sees tennis shoes going on our feet and her leash come out, nothing better than a walk for a dog. By the way, Nala has a gentle leader collar that she wears so my girls can walk her; well really so I can walk her and she doesn't pull us down the street. With the collar on, she's such a good, well behaved girl, without, well...

So here we are taking a nice dusk walk and we see a dog bounding through the bushes in front of us, I mean bounding, like a deer, from bush to bush, disappearing, than we see her again. Then we hear, "Lilly, Lilly, come here!" 

But Lilly's not going anywhere. Then I see a familiar site, the dog mom shaking a bag of treats and  being totally and completely ignored by her dog. 

We're not sure if we should walk on or stay and let Lilly get home, but decide to walk on since Lilly's not going anywhere except her her romp through the bushes. The woman, getting frustrated, because her own dog is ignoring her, offers Nala a biscuit. Nala gratefully and quickly accepts. Well now here comes the suddenly interested Lilly! 

 "Who's eating my biscuits," she wonders and comes to check us out. 

They do the dog greeting, and then because she has on her good dog collar, Nala has to act a little bad and jumps at Lilly. Lilly jumps back. There's really no aggression, but no one's listening, either. I'm pulling Nala, my girls are laughing, and the woman is still  yelling at Lilly. I think her exact words were "I'm gonna kill this dog!" Of course, she's not serious, but this comment makes my girls laugh harder and the coup de grace is when she throws (yes, throws) the bag of dog treats at Lilly. 

Now we're all laughing, even Lilly's mom. 

Somehow, she gets ahold of Lilly who happily follows her into the house. We go about our walk, but I was oh so glad to see another dog who well, just doesn't listen.

And so was Nala, because nothing's better than a biscuit to top off your cherished evening walk.

Hello Out There From Nala and Heather

The other day I found myself telling my daughters, "The thing about Nala is when you grow up, you're going to have some great stories to tell your kids." 

Nala is our five year old Golden Retriever, a beautiful dog, swift and graceful (though the vet says she needs to lose a few pounds), friendly and sweet (though she still could rival Pooh's friend Tigger in the jump department), and a loving look in her deep brown eyes, that can see into your heart and melt it (if she ever sits still long enough to let it happen). 

As I write, she's here by my side, sleeping contentedly, paws dreamily twitching now and then, but I remember her first years when I had trouble writing because she'd nip at my moving wrists; I couldn't get more than a few words down at a time between swatting, cussing and tossing rawhides. I hadn't thought of that in a while until I recently spoke with my past editor and she asked if Nala still was doing that. "No," I told her, laughing at the memory, sort of embarrassed but mostly glad my dear dog has broken that habit.

Nala still nips, though, and her favorite things now to nip instead of wrists are socks. More specifically, socks with feet in them. Usually this happens before my two girls (7 & 10) go to bed. I guess somebody needs to stir it all up. She begins with a single throaty sound that's a cross between a moan and a growl, then she pounces. She grabs whatever's closest, and often that's a foot. She gets on a roll and may let go of the foot to grab something else, maybe a stuffed animal, dirty laundry, her dog bed, maybe somebody else's foot, whatever she can get a hold of, a gentle hold to be sure, but dog teeth all the same, and runs in some sort of random path she creates. No, she never makes if far with a foot, but sometimes something else, and we all dive for the bed, our island in the comedic storm, and we watch with peals of laughter as she runs, the tail tuck a friend calls it, that growly sound still coming from deep within and that loving look in her eyes changed to something akin to insanity. It lasts for about a minute, then she plops down with a grunt and a thud, always a tail wag and it's over.

That's just one piece of daily life with Nala, and oh, there is so much more, so much more. But I should add my theory early on in this blog - you're born with a good dog quota. And we got all of our good dog with my first dog as an adult, Sasha, a gentle, proud yellow lab. She was THE good dog. If they had Olympics for good dogs, she would have won gold. And now we have Nala. And since we used up all of our good dog with Sasha, well... now we have Nala. 

But we love her and she makes our family complete.