Amelia's Stay at Gram and Offey's

Amelia has been staying with us since May 31st.

Her "dad", Parker, is off traveling the world, first to Argentina, then Peru, back to Iowa for a few days, then he jetted away to Seoul, South Korea. Singapore is next, then Kansas City for one day, and away again to Canada.

So Amelia has learned to love staying at Gram and Offey's house.

First thing Parker said when he was leaving... no rawhide bones! (On account of there was this one night of endless vomit after she consumed a chicken flavored bone. Parker says she became obsessed and just chewed until she actually consumed the whole thing and it wouldn't digest, so up it came.)

A normal evening at our house includes Gab-the-lab getting to come inside and go upstairs with us where she gnaws on a huge rawhide bone, not chicken flavored. They're not cheap, a pack of three. But bones keep her happy, she is learning to calm down a bit. And all that.

We are law-abiding grandparents. Really, we are! We want the babies to come back to us. We want our kids to trust that we'll do what they say we'll do. 

But Amelia, a month-long visitor to our house, with no rawhide bones, like her dad said...that was going to be nearly impossible. We found this out the first night the granddog was here. Gab was on the floor chewing on her giganto bone and Amelia could not take her eyes off of it. She kept running over to it, taking it, getting removed from the situation, whining, staring all the while at that bone she just had to have. She was not resting. We were not resting. Things were grim.

After one whole evening of this sort of behavior, I suggested it. Let's just SEE what happens if Amelia gets a rawhide bone. If she throws, we'll know better next time. Let's just SEE.

And we've been living happily ever after since that day. Amelia has a bone. (We tried to get her one her size. Didn't work. Wants a bone the size of HER, like Gab's.) Gabby has a bone. Sometimes Amelia will go over and take Gabby's bone. Seriously. Right in front of Gabby's nose...Gabby will look up at one of us and expect we will get it back for her. Thank Heavens she hasn't decided to eat Amelia because she certainly could do that with one swift bite. Amelia weighs 9.5 lbs. and Gabby weighs nearly 10 times that. We prefer to think of Gabby as polite (not scared of a little weinie dog).

So this is a favorite activity for Amelia. Chewing the forbidden bone. Taking Gabby's bone. Getting negative attention from Gram and Offey for taking Gab's bone.  Removal of the #2 bone from Amelia. Back to Gab. Repeat. In the a/c in a HOT Oklahoma June. Upstairs. With Gram and Offey. Life is good.

Another favorite activity that has just developed. We've been watering our plants like mad these days to keep them alive. Gabby taught Amelia how to get a drink from the water hose one day. That's all it took. Now Amelia runs through the water like a crazy puppy, splashing, jumping, no...leaping...the more water, the merrier. This whole watering thing ends up getting me (and her) filthy, so a bath is in order for both. After her water aerobics, she's real tired. Yesterday she slept three hours under the quilt on my bed, a tiny lump of snoring and breathing.