It looks like Misty may have found her forever sugar mama, after all.  For a while I thought it might be I, but in the long run maybe this is meant to be.

I’m grieving, and I miss her so much it’s an ache in my soul…but I want what’s best for her.  

Good bye, Misty.  I wish you all the love, joy, fun and unadulterated saturation of a life lived well as one beloved.

We hiked Redwood Regional yesterday.  What a perfect hike:  clean, green air, crisp cool weather (not too hot, not too cold).  Misty had a blast finding the biggest branches she could haul, prancing about like a show pony.  She even attempted to drag an entire downed Redwood.  Big thinker in a little body.

I bought a bottle of “natural” flea and tick spray for the hike.  It cost almost $17.00 and stank up a headache but hopefully it works.  If you ever use this stuff I would recommend bathing your dog after you finish hiking because if the smell bothers a human this much I can only imagine what it does to the sensitive olfactory organ on a dog.

I also discovered that Misty is not Lassie.  I slipped in the clay-like mud and fell with a resounding thump flat on my back.  Instead of showing grave concern and trying to help her “great master” out of danger, I could swear she was laughing as she hopped all around me, adding little paw-shaped prints to the giant smears of mud on my once-pristine clothing.  Maybe it was payback for calling her a mudpuppy.

Through all this miserable cold rain I have been so grateful.  Grateful that all the suffering Misty and I endured, has made us appreciate the simplest things with deep satisfaction.  Things like having a dry, warm place to run back to after walking in the rain and getting cold and soggy.  Things like clean blankets and soft pillows.  A quiet, safe sanctuary where the sun shines in to heal your body and your soul.

Sometimes you just have to stop and be grateful.  Even if your dreams have yet to be realized.

So basically I’m thinking an ideal home for Misty would be some kind of super-brain female who works from home and has acres and acres of space.  Misty is so darned smart and picks up new things so quickly I have a hard time keeping up.

She learned “give me paw” in about fifteen minutes.  The other day she picked up [my retarded version of] “heel” and got it so quickly after one walk she was like, “been there done that, give me something I can’t do with three paws tied.” 

This morning she learned to jump onto a large log and leap off of it to grab a stick on her way down, and reverse.  She really, really loves learning new things, complex games and interacting in a teaching environment.  I think she’d be stellar on an agility course.   

She also wants to play with some dogs and has played well with my friend’s male pit bull but she does seem to prefer older male dogs her size or larger.  She still needs good socialization training because she has had only very little opportunity to interact with other dogs.

This girl has so much potential; I’m just aching to see her go to a person who can do so much better for her than I can.

who will love me, understand where I’m coming from, need me as much as I need them and keep me forever and ever?

Here’s Misty looking magnificent with her “Uncle!”

One thing potential adopters need to know is that Misty has not had good experiences with men.  When a male friend put up his hand to pat her on the head, she flattened out.  She can be nervous around men, and she needs to be trained and conditioned into associating testosterone with good things (okay, the jokes can write themselves here)!

Seriously, though, because she isn’t as keen on men getting in her face and mushing her as she is with women, I have been working on reconditioning her anxiety.  She went on a couple of fun outings – hikes, the beach – with my male friend and me and she went from nervously licking him, to giving him soft trusting eyes and standing at his knees for pats.

I think given time, Misty  can learn to trust and love men in “her” pack.  But she needs someone who is willing to put in the time to take it slowly, bond with her and not give up when she isn’t the cuddlebug with him as she is with the women of the house.

I call pit bulls “naked” dogs because they don’t have the layers of thick Arctic fur that breeds like huskies sport, nor do they have water repellent fat layers like labradors.  Their short, thin fur tends to lie closely on their impressive musculature like lycra on a cyclist.

So they do tend to get cold in inclement weather.  Couple this with my tendency to dress pit bulls in embarassingly adorable outfits (my poor AmStaff Hunter was subject to vests, booties, sweaters, you name it – I pleaded NJ weather as my excuse back then) and we should all breathe a sigh of relief that this sleek insulated number is the worst act of fashion I have committed upon Misty (so far).

She does seem to appreciate the warmth and protection from this miserable Northern California “winter,” so we’re both content

I was giving Misty salmon oil caps to maintain her beautiful, glossy coat.  When she got out of the shelter she had dandruff but that disappeared.

She did not seem to care for the caplets much so I had been pricking the caplet and squeezing the oil onto her food and that worked fine.

Last night, I forgot to put the bottle away and left for my evening break from the garage.  When I returned, I found that (see picture above) with only about ten caplets left in the bottle.  So she ate about 150 x 1000mg caplets of salmon oil.

I freaked.  We called the emergency vet and since the caplets did not have any vitamin supplements it was likely she would not, uh, die.  We gave her some rice with chicken and I did spend the night sleeping on a shelf in the garage to make sure she did not start having a bad reaction.

The little bugger must have an iron stomach – she snored peacefully through the night and she didn’t even have diarrhea and she was hopping about ready to start her day at 7:30 a.m.

I am grateful she is okay.  And I am a terrible mother.  I need someone responsible with a good home for Misty…