While David has been busy taking charge of remodeling the kitchen, I've been doing my best to avoid getting involved as much as I can. He still managed to drag me to the home improvement (HA!) stores here in town. I would rather have root canal surgery than look at another paint sample. We finally settled on gray. Or so I thought. Do you know how many shades of gray there is? I do. I wish I didn't. Which knobs do you like? he asks. One I can pull and is silvery-looking isn't exactly the answer he was looking for but he should know me by now. Just match the hinges and leave me alone, I want to shout. I didn't but I thought about it real hard.
Anyway, I'm trying to get out of any more decorating decisions by taking care of the newest addition to our family–Tilda. Tilda is a rescue Yorkie we adopted from the local Humane Society. I've always gotten puppies in the past but I'm too old to break in a new dog. She has already turned into quite the little diva. She was found lost in the 'wild' (as wild as suburban America can be) and after a month in the pet hospital she was put up for adoption. I was told the vet thinks she's about four years old. Our sweet 14-year-old Yorkie, Cola, passed away almost two years ago and I've been missing her terribly so when I saw Matilda on Facebook, I had to have her.
I prefer one or two syllable names for pets so instead of renaming her, I shortened it to Tilda. Poor girl. So far she's been called Cola, Sophie (our daughter's dog), Tilly, Missy– everything but Tilda. She's never going to learn her name if I can't remember it. Getting old is heck. Har! Har!
I've always sworn to myself that the next dog we get would be older so there'd be no boundless puppy energy, no puppy teething on the furniture, no puppy whining in the night, no puppy pottying all over the house. I guess I overlooked that fact that she was on her own for who knows how long and seems to have forgotten that houses are not her private privy.
I'm too old to housebreak another dog, hence the desire for an older one, but here we are. I've been trying to take her out every couple of hours so hopefully she won't have any more accidents and so far I've been semi-successful. Semi-successful in the sense that sometimes I remember to take her out and sometimes she waits until she goes out.
I will say one thing, she picked one spot by the front door and has been pretty consistent about going there. We had some leftover potty pads we bought for Cola (they didn't work for her) so between them and going outside every couple of hours or so, I have my fingers crossed.
I guess I thought dogs were born knowing how to use a doggy door. I don't know whatever gave me that idea. We acquired our now old Cocker Spaniel, Molly, before David installed the doggy door in the screen door leading to the backyard so she learned to let herself out by jumping up and hitting the door to open it. Cola emulated her and did the same. They did learn to come back in using the doggy door which was all I really cared about because the whole reason for the door was to keep me from having to get up to let them in.
Tilda just doesn't seem to get it yet. She doesn't go outside unless I say, “Come on, Tilda, let's go outside.” She has yet to act like she has a clue what a door is let alone a doggy door. I spent one whole day trying to get her to come back into the house using it. I finally coaxed her in by holding the flap out of her way. Otherwise, forget it. If she thinks I'm going to stand by and let her highness in and out like a doorman at a fancy apartment complex, she's got another thing coming
Ẇe are also working on sleeping space. I bought her a crate when I first brought her home because I was told she was used to one. She didn't seem fond of it so I tried letting her sleep on the floor of our bedroom last night. No only did she whine, she jumped up on our bed and it's a pretty tall bed. Into the crate she went.
I guess I need to learn patience. After all, she's only been with us less than a week. But it's been a LONG week.