10/6/03

So anyway, continuing from earlier. We’ve started planning our route home. We’re kinda stuck though b/c we’re visiting one of hubbys cousins in PA on the way home and we can’t find a decent hotel that allows dogs within a reasonable distance from their house. The only one we’ve found has a 50 dollar pet fee on top of the 85.00 room rate, which I am not inclined to settle for. They’ve offered to let us stay the night with them but I don’t really want to do that. I don’t know them all that well. If that turns out to be our only option I can live with it though…I think.

We’ve been giving the kittens more freedom in the house. Sophie won’t let them go downstairs. It’s kind of funny. She vocalizes a lot around them, especially when they’re outside their room. When they start going downstairs she’ll make these worried noises and run down and herd them back upstairs. Since I don’t entirely trust the other cats around the kittens yet we’ve started locking Sophie in the room with the kittens during the day and at night. I fear it’s going to drive Sophie insane though, she gets too bored. I’m going to try to figure something else out tonight so Sophie won’t have to stay in the room all day. Kitten #1 has started eating Sophie’s hard food. We were shocked, he was hovering over the bowl crunching Sophie’s food! They’re a little young for that food, it’s not like it will hurt him, he’s just ahead of schedule, if that’s what he wants though, he can have it. They’ve also gotten very interested in the water. There’s a bowl of water in their room now and we have a waterer in the hallway, it filters and cycles the water so they have fresh running water. Anyway, they keep sticking their noses in paws into that.

After yesterday I’ve decided Sara can’t go to anymore family gatherings. We’re sitting at the table and look over to see hubbys step-dad offering Sara people food. Did he bother to ask us?? Nope. Do we allow Sara to have people food? Absolutely not!!! None of our animals are offered people food. The only thing I give the cats is lactose-free milk. Last time we took Sara to a family gathering someone almost offered Sara people food there too. So that’s it, no more family gatherings involving food until they learn. Hubbys family is way too used to people allowing dogs to eat people food. I’m not going to allow someone else undo the work we’ve put into this dog making her a good dog. Sara did get a lot of praise yesterday for how good she is. The other dog there, Daphne, barked the whole entire time we were there. She was out in the pen with Sara and everything. Sara was quiet and no one could get over the fact that she doesn’t bark. How hard is it really? Don’t give your dog attention when it barks for attention and it will learn barking gets it nowhere. Daphne could be trained not to bark if she was ignored. Sara doesn’t even bark when she needs to go out anymore, she just whimpers a little. I’m really proud of how Sara turned out, we didn’t really do anything special, we just did as the breeder and the websites I’ve read told us.

I still can’t believe it’s only two weeks until our trip. 2 weeks, 2 weeks! I soooo need a vacation and so does hubby. I’m still finding it hard to stomach the idea of leaving the kittens for a week but it’s just as hard leaving my cats. I really miss them when we’re gone, especially Kenny, he gets upset when we leave him in the living room and go upstairs. If he falls asleep in the living room and wakes up to find us not there anymore he’ll wander around the house howling until we call him. We’re very lucky though, our neighbors come over and they do more than feed the cats, they spend time petting them and playing with them. Last time the wife even wrote out a detailed account of everything they did, games they played, things they noticed about each cats personality. It was really neat. Plus I’ll have my webcam going in the kitten room so I can check on them each night from the hotel, at least until the first time the power goes out anyway. I’m hoping to find something really neat to get our neighbors somehere along the road. I found a neat wooden cat for them last time. I might leave some cookies or something out on the table for them when we leave too, I feel like I can never do enough for all the work they do while we’re gone. I feel so lucky to have such great neighbors.

My mother, jeez, she said she bought me something else over the weekend. My mom always showers me with gifts when we visit, I never have anything for her and don’t really this time either. I should tell her that she shouldn’t give me things because I need all the room for the stuff she wants me to take home. 🙂 hehe I had planned to make two cross stitch things, one of a golden retriever for my mom and step-dad and one of dachsunds for my grandma, didn’t work out though because I gave up on the cross-stitching. I totally can’t get it right, I’m just not cut out for that kind of crafty stuff. If the kittens were going to be older by the trip I’d surprise my mom with a kitten, my step-dad would kick my ass but he’d get over it. 🙂

Well, anyway, I should probably end this and get some work done. I’ve yet to do a damn bit of work. 😉