Visiting Food Lady

Competition Nap

Faith and Trevor are obviously having a hard time getting used to each other. One white face, one black face, same adoring expression for their person. Or maybe that look is for the dog bowls I'm holding. Trevor tried to steal some of Faith's kibble today, and she gave him what-for. As she was doing that, Snickers snuck in succesfully for a blind taste test (as it were). Faith, of course, never heard him coming.

You wouldn't know from the picture that Trevor is twice Faith's weight (and built accordingly). Having spent the first year of his life trying to snap the rope that had him tied off, his entire hind end is overdeveloped and he's built like a truck. When you look from behind, he actually looks a little bowlegged.

But in honor of the Three Woofs readers, I wanted to say a little bit about my trip up to the Great White North, which, in the event, had rather more mud than snow. My son doesn't do well on long car trips, so we went up the night before and stayed in a hotel. He ended up crawling in with me, so Trevor got the other bed to himself. As you can imagine from the picture here, he thought that was just about right. I remember thinking as we were driving up that it would be interesting to meet the lady behind the blog, and that I was actually going to meet the dogs I'ld been following for over a year. Which struck me as kind of neat. My son thought it was cool!

We got over to Casa de Food Lady at around 10:00am, and Sheena was just coming back in with the crowd. The car was immediately surrounded by excitedly curious dogs peering in the windows on all sides. Unfortunately, it's been raining non-stop since, so I can't show you the paw prints on the car.:-) Finally the dogs calmed down enough for me to get out, whereupon they all jumped on me (which, to be clear, I more or less invited). Not to be outdone, Dexter proceeds to hop up on the hood and goes nose-to-nose with Trevor through the windshield. My son is still in the car, and he's watching this and laughing his head off. More so when Sheena let out with "DEXTER MORGAN WHAT ARE YOU DOING ON THAT CAR?!? GET OFF THAT CAR RIGHT NOW!". Dexter, mind, you, is completely oblivious to this, because he is too busy peering in the front window to see what's inside. I figured that a brown mud racing stripe down the center of the hood and the windshield painted in Dexter paws was pretty darn funny. Heck, I was there with a six year old and a dog on a ten acre farm in the rain, so we were obviously going to hose down everything in sight anyway.

Twoie lost out. Sheena put him up because he's dog aggressive. Tweed apparently doesn't like children, but by the time we left my son had managed to sneak in an unauthorized hello when Sheena and I were distracted. If I heard her right, this was the first time in 11 years that Tweed had allowed a small child to pet him without growling or biting. To his credit, my son had done the whole "meet strange dog" protocol correctly, slowly, and smoothly, but Sheena seemed pretty surprised that he'ld gotten away with it. Once they'ld gotten themselves introduced Tweed actually accepted a couple of gentle strokes. Maybe Tweed's made some progress. If so, that seems great.

For the last two years or so I've really only gotten to see Food Lady through the eyes of a blog author. Watching her in action is pretty striking. She's out in the field managing four dogs, each an individual, and each with very particular needs. Dexter can take criticism. Piper needs a gentler touch. Wootie is, well, Woo, and Faith loves to chase whichever dog is in motion at the time. And then there were my son and Trevor, chasing after all of them at once. And I watched Sheena over 90 minutes as she turned her attention from one dog to the next non-stop, shifting her style to meet each dog, never once losing track for a moment of who was who. How many people do you know who can do that with anybody (human or dog or whatever)? It's a true gift, and it was pretty amazing to watch in action.

She truly inspires the dogs. She call's Dexter back through a fence, and he's racing right along, and she calls to him "Go! Go! Go! Go! Go!" in a high-pitched, excited, encouraging voice, and it was like he found an entire new gear. You could literally see him hunker down, dig in, and give it everything he could find. Now yes, he is a Border Collie, and pulling out all the stops to respond is part of what they love, but in one way or another Sheena got that extra something out of every one of her dogs - even Faith, who was a relative newcomer. And Trevor, who was giving her provisional respect within a few minutes of joining the group.

I don't know how to say this better than: it's a pleasure to watch a real master at work.

At the end, Sheena spent almost 30 minutes sitting with Faith, nominally getting Faith ready to travel and allowing me to get my son into clean clothes in our car with some semblance of privacy. As to Faith and Sheena, I'm not entirely sure who was reassuring whom. Most likely both, of course. It's one of the wonders of people who do rescue. You can't foster an animal without falling in love with them, but you need to be able to let them go when the time comes. You hope and plan for the best, and frankly you don't hear a lot back unless something goes wrong. Sheena's been doing this for twelve years, and she's still an optimist. Which is pretty darn amazing when you think about the things rescue people see.

Meanwhile, my son is thrilled with his new cuddle-buddy (and vice versa). Faith, I think, has never met a lap she didn't like, and she truly loves to snuggle in next to people given any excuse at all. Trevor does too, so today I got some quality snuggle-sandwhich time between them on the couch in the picture.

Or at least, I did when Faith wasn't watching television. But that's a story for another night...