20 May 2012 All’s well in dog world

          Thursday morning I drove Gloria to Tri-Cities Regional Airport, to board a plane for St. Petersburg/Clearwater.  She was making a weekend trip to visit an on-line friend, and to recuperate a bit from the last month’s medicine show.

          When I walked into the house alone our dog, Loki, started looking for her.

          Loki was a rescue dog who took some time to decide that she belonged in our pack.  In some ways, she is still puzzling out that decision.  For instance, she will display a desire for contact but she is still hesitant to make first contact, and never seems to lean on me.   She is, I believe, more strongly attached to Gloria than she is to me.  That’s not a problem.  She’s part of the family and knows it now. 

          When Gloria and I are both home, Loki likes to stay between us whenever possible.  This causes some interesting traffic patterns as we try to avoid tripping over her.  She will move when told to move; but she will wait until the very last second before getting out of the way. 

          Loki had no idea where to park this weekend.  She wound up lying nearer to me than normal.  Each time I went outside and then came back in, Loki looked for Gloria.  She wasn’t despondent, but something wasn’t right in her world. 

          Gloria flew back this morning.  Her flight was slated to arrive at 0900.  This meant rolling out at 0500 in order to care for her iguanas and for Loki.  I had the alarm set for 0500 but woke up at 0445.  There was no point in trying to sleep any later.  I got to the airport with about 30 minutes to spare. 

          When we walked in together, Loki made her pleasure known instantly.  She has a “happy/excited” dance behavior she displays when she is very pleased.  Gloria got three repeats this morning. 

          She didn’t see them, but I was doing repetitions to my own “welcome home! Routine as well.  Loki may be a better dancer than I, but I’m more thrilled to have the pack intact.

          Since returning home, I’ve scraped down and backwashed the pool, marinated some lamb chops for the grill, sprayed the pool shed for spiders, and now I’m ready to pile up for a while.