Lola

Lola arrived last Saturday. I should have known it would be a fight to the end given my initial experience with the "rescue" who shall remain unnamed. It could have been the first contact I had with them when I was informed they had meant to call me back but were "trashed from the Homecoming game the night before"; or the fact that the head of the rescue had no idea how to email and had to leave post it notes on the computer screen for the younger volunteers to send needed emails; or the fact that even when I got an email, I could hardly read it because it was so illiterate and misspelled.

It took well over 3 months to arrange what should have taken a month at the most. I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt as I suspect they are doing the best they can with no money and not many volunteers but when, on the day Lola was to be picked up in Amarillo, I received a phone message that began with the words, "You F---ing B---h, you owe me money for my time and gas etc. ad nauseum that took up 10 minutes of voice mail, all because a volunteer was angry that the transport that *I* arranged from Seattle because they wouldn't call him directly, was a little late, I had had it. The work me came out and I told them in no uncertain terms where we stood and where we would stand in the future should I get another voice mail like that.

So it should have been no surprise that when I finally got poor Lola, she was grossly underweight, has a bladder infection, had nails that almost curved into her pads they were so long, was flea ridden and filthy and clearly has been neglected despite having been in foster for so long. I was irate when I saw her and realized the condition she was in. But all that is behind her now.

Her first night with me, I gave her a bath and she promptly made herself at home on the sofa:

This suits me just fine thank you.

Lola has a fantastic temperament. She is incredibly sweet, very people oriented, clearly is familiar with being inside the house most of the time and loves the cats, Baby and everyone she comes in contact with. She is the anti-Baby in personality. Nothing disturbs her, she prefers to be inside and follows me around the house, never barks and is scared of nothing. They are a perfect match. Baby spends more time in the house now, wondering what's so interesting in here and she is venturing out more, wondering why he is always outside. Baby has become far more people oriented already and she is exploring being able to go outside and run.

To my immense relief, there has been no jealousy on Baby's part and they get along fantastically well. If anything Lola keeps Baby in his place. She has growled at him a few times (which quickly got her sent to time out) and she takes his bones and bully sticks without complaint from him though I always make sure there is enough to go around, they are supervised and nothing is left out for them to fight over. It has been absolutely seamless integrating her into the zoo and I am hoping there will be no delayed reaction.

Lola's only downfall is that she clearly had no boundaries whatsoever in her various homes. She gets on the furniture, puts her feet on the counter, is rather pushy with wanting pets etc. So we have had a few conversations and clicker training episodes as a result. She is incredibly smart and learned immediately that things are a little different here. She now knows the rules and is only allowed on the guest bed:

This life of ease is *exhausting*.

Lola also sleeps a LOT for a 3 year old, probably due to her infection plus the fact that she is terribly thin and malnourished. Her usual position for most of the day is here in front of the fire:

This ain't Texas weather!

Lola has also been introduced to the new world of bully sticks and bones which she loves. She likes to eat her bully stick in front of the fire and she is very dainty about it.

Where have you been all my life bully stick?

I took Lola to the vet last night. She had a full and I mean full exam, fecal, blood tests, nail trimming, microchipping etc. Thank god, by some miracle she is parasite and heart worm free. Heart worms were a special concern as there is a nationwide backorder for the arsenic drug Immiticide which is used to treat heart worm. While we don't have heart worm here in WA, it is extremely prevalent in places like Texas and can kill a dog.

Lola is in relatively good health considering but she will need antibiotics for her infection which we are still trying to narrow down and won't know until her labs come back. Baby, Dexter and Stabby as well as Lola had to be treated for fleas and of course her weight is our biggest issue. I spent a small fortune on excellent food from Mud Bay today called Taste of the Wild. It was tricky to find something with a lot of calories that is nutritious but not too rich for her as she clearly has been fed poor quality filler food and not much of it. In addition, M, Baby's foster mom sent me a recipe for fattening her up. They are called Satin Balls (don't say it) and I dutifully went to the store and purchased all the goods. It took me an hour to cook it all up as I don't have a skillet big enough to cook 10 pounds of beef in and Lola absolutely will not eat raw food right now. The process:

Even I can make this!

I have to confess, with the molasses in there, it smelled pretty good. But I controlled myself and saved it for Lola! She gets two cups of food for breakfast and two for dinner and a cup and a half of the Satin Ball recipe for her midday meal. She had no qualms about snarfing it all down so it shouldn't be long before she's plumped up. The kids got to lick the bowl when I was done cooking:

Phase I - they start out equally.

Phase II - Baby is relegated to the edge. Story of his new life!

Dexter meanwhile, is seriously peeved with the arrival of a new dog and the fact that he does not get to partake in Satin balls.

Hey! Where'd the bowl go???

Dexter has had a rough time adjusting to Lola even though she has been a saint. She doesn't look twice at the cats let alone chase them. Stabby couldn't care less. Dexter however, has taken her arrival very personally and has taken every opportunity to hiss, growl, fluff himself into a giant orange ball and generally try to claw her eyes out. He has evidently come to realize she is not leaving and has taken up his station under the Christmas tree, camouflaged by the tree skirt and looking for an opportunity to launch, as Ben puts it, a slightly off center frontal attack. Poor Dexie. He is not capable of perfectly coordinated offensives.

I see you and I hate you.

The only bump in the road has been the discovery that Lola had been sneaking out of my yard every day to explore the neighborhood. My neighbor came over to tell me he had watched her crawl through a tiny 5 inch gap in the fence in utter disbelief and that when she was done touring, she'd happily return home. I almost died when he told me. At least she is friendly and seemed to know exactly where home was. But the thought that Baby might have enlarged the hole and gotten out almost gave me a stroke. Sooooo, a completely new fence was built yesterday as well as new gates and the fortress is impregnable now. You can see the new fence in the video below.

To my delight, the dogs have already begun playing together and they race around the yard, chasing each other and play fighting. We are far ahead of where I thought we'd be at this time so all the grief of the adoption process was worth it.

Happy dogs: