… where you the reader take over and I put my feet up. Just send any pics and caption or jottings about anything to peter.b.abrahams@gmail.com. And now over the prolific, thoughtful, and entertaining Mary L. Thanks, Mary!

Diana pawPrints – The Wonder Puppy

Born: October 25, 2018 (possibly October 30-31) Hesperia Animal Control
Adopted: December 21, 2018 California Labs and More
And yes, I celebrate both of them.

After Ramses died I was going to wait until after a month long road trip I had planned for April of the following year to get a new dog. I was going to drive up the coast, stopping at various places to do some watercolor and just see things. I had always wanted to see Hearst Castle, I wanted to stay at Yosemite again, I wanted to stay at some B&Bs and little places along the coast and see some of the iconic costal views. I wanted an extended, California tourist road trip vacation.

I couldn’t stand the quiet in the house, not hearing him breathe or his nails on the hardwood floors. The house was still and dead. I had had dogs for 25 years by this point. I couldn’t stand not having a dog.

I wasn’t going to get another dog so soon. I wanted to take an extended road trip up the coast of California i  n April/May. I had it all planned out.

I lasted 10 days. Then I started looking on Petfinder, the Humane Society and eventually found California Labradors and More. I like big dogs wanted a black Labrador or a Golden Retriever.. I had only had black male dogs but my Mom insisted I get a female this time as she thought the males marked in the house all the time and the females didn’t. Well, our dog Cuppy would lift her leg on trees and telephone poles. But to keep the peace I consented to getting a female. It was only years later my Mother finally discovered that it is three times more expensive to spay a female than to neuter a male. Duh. And Diana and Freyja have marked where previous dogs have had “accidents”. They all do it regardless of gender.

They had some puppies that would be 8 weeks old soon and I got on a waiting list. I couldn’t pick a puppy, it was first come etc and you got to pick what was left over. I was third on the list. My first choice was Cardinal, what looked to be a hairy puppy. (After Diana’s Embark came back that hairiness was likely the Golden Retriever gene.) All of the puppies were black but only Cardinal and one of the males were fluffy. There were only two girls even though it was a large litter of 9 and I was third in line Cardinal was taken by the time it was my turn. I wanted the male but to avoid the wrath of my Mother took Peony, the only other girl left. She was a little wall-eyed but she got over that. I still think her eyesight isn’t that great as she has always hesitated getting down out of the car, like she can’t see the ground very well. She had trouble getting into it too, even after she was plenty big to jump up. Like she couldn’t quite gauge the distance. She still hesitates getting in and out.

Diana has heterochromia; her eyes are two different colors. She was 5 months old before I noticed it. Her left eye is a medium brown and her right eye is more a golden brown with a dark brown ring around it.

My friend and I brainstormed names. I had a big list of names of warriors and gods but mostly male names. We had to start over with female names. Among them Hera, Athena, Diana, Isis, Minerva, Boadicea, Kali, Shiva, Ishtar, Freyja and a few others. My Mother hated all of them. But my parents stick to simple, saccharine dog names like Mittens, Mitzi, Candy, Dolly, etc. All of my dogs have had warrior names to strike fear into any burglar even thinking about entering my yard: Caesar, Goliath, Ramses. My next dog might have been Attila or Genghis or Cochise. Instead I had to come up with a girly name. We finally decided on Diana, the Goddess of the hunt and Amazon Princess of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream because I could call her Diana pawPrints, the Wonder Puppy, a play on Diana Prince, Wonder Woman. So she became Diana. My Mother hated it.

She went through all of the puppy classes at the Humane Society until Covid hit. She did the puppy play social times until she aged out at 14 weeks.

Then something new was offered at the Humane Society. Nosework. She was allowed to start at 16 weeks. She was a natural. First she was started with sniffing out treats in various things like buckets, bowls and boxes. Then she was to find a scent and then get a treat for finding it. She has a great nose, maybe because her eyesight isn’t 20/20 but also she is extremely food motivated. Once she figured out she would get a treat for finding the smelly thing there was no stopping her.

I enrolled her in the National Association of Canine Scent Work and she passed her ORT (Odor Recognition Test) as soon as she was old enough. I also registered her as an All American Dog with the AKC so she could do their scent trials. She was just starting trials for both when Covid hit. By the time there were trials again, we had adopted Freyja so her scentwork career pretty much stopped. Most of the trials are out of town which required me to drive a few hours the day before and stay overnight in a dog friendly hotel. Freyja cannot be left alone so she would have to come. It just wasn’t practical any more.

I had hoped to get Diana certified as a therapy dog as she is a natural. She always knows when my Mom isn’t feeling well and whenever we would go over there the first thing she would do is check up on my Mom, giving her a good sniff over. Later in the evening she would get up on the couch and put her head in my Mom’s lap. When Covid hit she was over 1 year old and about to start her CGC classes, the last step before her therapy dog classes and certification. But that never happened.

Freyja came into our pack. Diana was great at the meet and greet. After we got home she wasn’t too sure why the new visitor didn’t leave but was just staying and staying. Eventually she got over it.

Diana had stopped playing with toys at this point but after the Dog Days of Summer event at Mossy Toyota where my car got an oil change and they got toys, Diana was suddenly interested in toys again. Her toy and Freyja’s toy. Freyja was clueless about toys but after watching Diana she learned how to play. Also how to do the play bow, and eventually how to bark at pedestrians to notify Diana to come and bark too. My tag team alarm system.

Diana was a great teacher and Freyja took cues from her and gained confidence at the dog park. She taught Diana how to knock the trash cans over and dig through them.

Diana’s mother was listed as a lab mix but after Embark and eventually Wisdom came back for Diana, her mother was likely a Golden Retriever mix. She was about 60 pounds and females usually take after their mothers so I was hoping Diana would be about 60 pounds. She hit 60 lbs at 7 months. Even after her DNA came back the average size of females for Golden Retrievers and German Shepherds is about 55-65 pounds. So either that 3% Rottweiler gene was really strong or her Dad was one huge German Shepherd because her heaviest was 105 lbs. She is the biggest dog I have ever owned, bigger even than Caesar. The vet said she was too poofy and needed to go on a diet. She has since lost weight and is a healthy 88 lbs now. An 88 lb lapdog. I’m sure everyone is familiar with the breed.

Her toy drive has remained. She switched to balls for a while but she still plays with toys. Freyja does but not as much. She will watch Diana and when Diana drops whatever she was playing with Freyja will take it and play with it for a while. Diana’s favorites are tennis balls but she also has a Jolly Ball equine ball with a handle she likes to carry around in her mouth like an old lady’s purse. They both love the Lambchop toys. This Christmas Diana got an extra large tennis ball and a plush cow with a squeaker and of course Freyja does occasionally steal them but with her short attention span she drops them and goes off and Diana soon gets them back.

Diana developed seasonal allergies around age three so I have to keep track of the pollen count on a weather app so I can dose her with Benedryl and give her medicated shampoo bathes. That keeps her comfortable. Her initial diagnosis came after terrible itching, hot spots, goopy eyes and a skin infection where she was losing hair which resulted in a trip to the vet. At first I thought it was a food allergy as Ramses developed an allergy to chicken at about 10 years old but after learning it was likely environmental I kept my eye on the weather app and by process of elimination, I identified it as tree pollen. Probably why bathing her in Eucalyptus shampoo was making her worse, not better.

All in all she leads a happy life. She gets good food, treats, toys, has Freyja s a companion, full run of the front and back yard and the two of them bark at pedestrians to their heart’s content and go to the dog park. She gets hugs and pets on demand. While it may not be a utopian dog’s life, they could both have had much worse. Or in Freyja’s case, none at all. I suspect Freyja does realize she has a good life but I will never know the story of her early life, if she remembers it or appreciates the life she has now. Diana doesn’t know any different since she and her siblings and Mom were rescued before her eyes were open and she want straight from the foster to me at 8 weeks.. It’s not like they huddle around at the dog park and compare notes on food, treats and sleeping arrangements. Dogs don’t feel envy. Except maybe for that toy the other one is playing with right now.