Slightly nonplussed victory

 

Olivia has apparently spent the entire week in tears at the Loss of Her First Puppy,* and when Croissant was due to go this week Olivia was Teetering on the Brink**.   So Southdowner said that it was time she saw her family again anyway, and she’d take Croissant and drop her off in London and then, since she has pretty much to come through here anyway, stop in and see how Pavlova is doing.

Due to a Variety of Reasons, Good and Bad, I am Very Short of Sleep (again) and I’ve been trying to decide (including when I should be sleeping) whether demonstrating that Pavlova is alive and apparently undamaged would be less frightening if it was Olivia, who is merely besotted and not a professional, or if it was Southdowner, who is a professional, but who therefore understands about the difference between dog training manuals and reality.***

I stopped thinking about it by being too tired to think about anything and, furthermore, it was Southdowner who was coming so who was scarier was moot. . . and we all met up at Third House.  Hellhounds and hellterror and I have been up there I think three times, and the, ahem, interface is beginning to develop, even if Darkness does still run upstairs if she COMES AFTER HIM indoors.†

But I felt like the headmistress of some ramshackle, borderline school whose students unprecedentedly band together to see off the Ofsted†† inspector who might have the authority to close us down.  We may not be going on to Oxford, but we’re unexpectedly getting a passing grade.

 

Very good. One more step however and Darkness will be on the far side of the pond.

 

I’m hanging these in chronological order. But this is just the best photo ever.

 

 

However I am not a one trick puppy. I have a full range of cute behaviour.

 

 

I’m the biggest, meanest hellterror EVER! I can take you on with my tail tied behind my back!

 

 

Um. I could do that too. Um.

 

Hey! That’s MY tail!

 

PLAY! WITH! ME!!!

 

Aaaaugh! You got me! (And the hellgoddess was so amazed she almost didn’t take the photo.)

 

Yup. We’re all here. This is now US.

 

We’ll all get used to the new ‘us’ thing. Eventually.

 

 

Stay tuned.  More to come.

* * *

* Lavvy’s attitude, by the way, is, YAAAAAAAY.  I’ve been bored with them for weeks.

** You’d think she’d be looking forward to getting some of her life back.  I’m pretty sure her husband is looking forward to her getting some of her life back.

*** I’ve told you about the ‘introduce your new, ie still unvaccinated^ puppy to your old dog or dogs on neutral ground where other dogs don’t go’, haven’t I????  SNAAAAAAAAARRRRRL.  Where are we supposed to find this Elysian field out here in the real world?  You finally find a dog book that admits to the possibility of adding a puppy to an existing dog situation, and THIS is the advice it offers??????  I paid money for that book.

^ Eight days till first walk+

+ Except that frelling Southdowner says ten minutes.  And you add five minutes a month.  I can’t wear a hellterror out in ten minutes.  Why do you think I want to TAKE HER FOR WALKS IN THE FIRST PLACE?

† That’s not going to work much longer.  You might want to consider resigning yourself to the inevitable.

†† http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/