Ivy's post

Hi! My name is Ivy. You mighta seen my picture in the last post. That wasn't my best side though. I keep posing and posing but Miss Katie can't seem to take a picture fast enough! And I do plenty of smiling! Sheesh. Here's a better one...kinda.


Miss Katie has offered to do the typing for me this morning but I wish she'd stop griping about the keyboard and the screen. She'll be able to pick up her dumb laptop from the Apple Store tonight. At least that's what they promised when they took it in to fix it. I mean really! She needs to be more patient. Anyway..... I'm going have a lay-down under the counter here and give Ngaire's face a thorough wash while Miss Katie types. :-p (I asked her to put in some doggy smiles)

I came to live here on The Street With The Funny Name last Wednesday. I'm starting to feel at home now. My foster home was very cool (I don't tell anybody about what happened before that), but it's always pretty special to have a forever home. :-p Miss Katie does her best to make me happy and keep me busy while teaching me what the limits are (the hard part). The Tramp isn't quite so scary as I thought he was. I wouldn't go in or out, or come when he called, he looked sooooo big standing by the back door, but now I know it's ok. He gives me treats and it's heaven when he scratches behind my ears. :-p I lay on his lap for a while yesterday and it was sooooo relaxing. He told Miss Katie I lost all muscle tone and possibly bones too! I didn't want to get down and he had to "pour" me onto the floor so he could go get a coffee! tee hee


I like my house ok. It's big enough to run and play in and I'm kind of starting to enjoy the baskets of toys. I empty out the toys and Miss Katie picks everything up again. The Tramp just steps over them (Ngaire says this is typical).


Ngaire doesn't care if I play with her stuff. She gets all kinds of noises out of the toys too, but I haven't figured out how to do that yet. And the "fetch" game is truly bizarre. If you haven't tried it, don't bother. Look at this face. I'm tellin' ya, I'm being sincere here! Just take my word for it!


I don't know if they'll ever get me to buy into that nonsense! All that wasted energy. I'd rather watch.


And Ngaire says tennis balls are wonderful. She's addicted to their squish. Bleeeccch.


Ngaire doesn't care if I eat her food either. What's up with that? She's really nice to me but she can be so weird sometimes. The big people have to watch so I don't eat too much and get sick. I taught them that lesson already!

I like my yard too. It's pretty big and the fence keeps me safe. There are cats next door, neighbor people to pet me, and even deer! They come to eat the apples over there under the tree. Miss Katie never gets to see the deer, they always run away. I can't think why! Miss Katie put up low fences around her gardens but they're pretty silly since I can fit right through them. Ngaire can too (shhhh....don't tell) but she doesn't. Maybe she'll get around to telling me why she doesn't. Oh well.

A few days ago I finally let them hear my voice. Now I'm comfortable in my yard, I'm starting to keep an eye on what goes on outside the fence. I've found a few things to bark at but nothing overly exciting yet. The weather has been nice too. It was lovely and cool last night and the big people had the windows open. Lots of interesting smells and noises come in on the breeze. This morning I noticed some things that needed barking at. Miss Katie said it was only 6 am!


That's about when the rush hour traffic starts going by. I figure if nothing else, it's nice and neighborly to say good morning to all the nice people as they drive to work. I can sit right next to the bed, see out the window and be friendly. (After all, Miss Katie kept me up last night until 1 am while she read a book. Not my fault if I'm a morning dog!)

So Miss Katie was a bit grumpy when she got up today, but she let Ngaire and me out for a nice long romp this morning after breakfast. She sits at her computer and watches us out the window. She says she has eyes in the back of her head too! I betcha it has something to do with why they put these noisy tags on us....but I can't prove it.


We did lots of running, barking and playing. Ngaire showed me how to drink out of the bird bath. Ngaire doesn't even have to stretch. I have to stand up and put my paws in the water to get a drink. At least the dumb birds stay away! :-p

Then we went to wrestle in the dirt under the gardenia bush. It's the coolest place in the yard on a hot day and there's some nice loose dirt to dig in. Miss Katie didn't know that's what we were doing behind there! We had a great time. She also didn't know that some of the dog tag rattling she heard was me digging a big hole almost under her window.


She was a bit peeved with me when she called us in. I was deliciously filthy! :-p I kind of forgot though that dirt = bath. How the heck Ngaire kept herself so clean is a mystery! I've gotta watch her more closely.

I let Miss Katie haul me into the tub and wash me down. She says when I shake I don't get the dirt quite as high up on the walls as Ngaire does. But I tried, I really did. Miss Katie didn't exactly say she was bored or anything, but now she can vacuum and wash the floors and bathroom again this morning! I know she did them last night before dinner. I thought she liked to do that sort of stuff but she said next time she's gonna use the baby pool and hose outside. I'm really afraid of the hose and I hide while Miss Katie waters the garden so I'm gonna have to think about that.


Anyway, life is good. I gotta go watch over the vacuuming and floor washing now. Then I can take a nap to make up for getting up so early this morning.

See you later.