The Best News

I swear, I’ll get back to book blogging and blog visiting and commenting soon! Last week, I was so exhausted between the emotions and my fibro being a bit cranky that when my laptop would cooperate and turn on, I couldn’t get myself to write coherently. But if you’ll indulge me in one more personal post, I have someone I’d like to introduce you to. Someone who has already been approved by our cat, and who has managed to make all of us fall in complete love with her after just two days. Someone who I already can’t imagine life without:

Thistle! Ok, this is not the most flattering shot, but it’s the only one that I had online, and since I’m borrowing my mom’s laptop (mine is on strike again and refuses to turn on; good thing my mom’s online class is over!), it’ll have to tide you over. A few days before I got her, she got a hair cut, and if I were her I would *not* have tipped the groomer. They shaved her face poodle-style (the rescue thinks she might be a poodle-yorkie mix) and clipped everything else short except for the little poof on top of her head. If you’re curious to know what she’ll look like with more fluff, you can visit her Petfinder page, which has a short video as well as a couple cuter pictures (note that I didn’t pay as much as that adoption fee states!). I think you see the inspiration for her name, however. It’s funny; before I got her I had a whole list brainstormed up with help from my Twitter friends, but as soon as I met her I realised an ‘elegant’ French name or even a standard ‘cutsie’ name just wouldn’t fit. She looked a bit fae to me, and I’ve always loved the names Shakespeare gave Titania’s attendants in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Between that, and Briar Rose (a suggestion from Clare), and her little poof of hair on top, Thistle just seemed perfect. Shockingly enough, everyone in the family agreed. It’s a lovely word to say too; ‘th’ is my favourite sound in the English language (whenever I had problems with Russian pronunciation, I would comfort myself with ‘th,’ since so many non-native English speakers find it tricky) and the pup seems happy enough to answer to it.

Thistle really is the perfect dog for us; the couple who run the rescue group were fostering her, and they had almost decided to keep her themselves. I feel so blessed that they let me have her instead, because I couldn’t have imagined such an incredible fit. Her favourite thing to do is sleep on any available lap; her second favourite is to get a belly rub. She’s completely calm; while she’s happy to meet people, she doesn’t jump or lick. She takes things in stride, whether it’s loud noises or a cat who, after Colette, is a bit skeptical of dogs. She walks perfectly on a leash, and whether outside or inside she’ll come the moment you call her. And while she spends a lot of the day laying around, she really enjoys playing fetch (her favourite toy is a pink stuffed hedgehog my niece picked out) and going on walks. Did I mention that she’s housetrained, has yet to show any desire to chew anything, and I have no idea what her bark sounds like because nothing has set her off (including the regular cacaphony of our neighbourhood dogs)? She’s about nine pounds and fine-boned (I wonder if I’ll be told she needs to lose a bit of padding at our vet appointment), so quite portable but not so little we have to worry about my five-year-old niece around her. And while she enjoys following me around the house, if I leave her closed in my bedroom, she just goes to sleep instead of whining or scratching. Oh, and the grey you see in her photo is just her natural colouring, not a sign of age; the vet estimates her to be only two or three years old! Which is good, because my life is already so much happier with her in it, and I want her there for as long as possible.

I haven’t forgotten about Colette either; when we made the switch she seemed just as happy to go with the rescue group woman. When I called later, her foster mom said she’d jumped right into her lap and licked her, so she wasn’t traumatised. And yesterday, she met with a new potential owner, who took her home!  The resiliency of dogs, their willingness to open up to anyone who tries, astounds me.

So this story has a complete happy ending, and I shall be back to blogging about books, but this time with a snoozing Thistle on my lap (or torso, if we want to get technical). :D I want to thank each and every one of you who took the time to comment on my previous post. All of your stories, sympathies, and reassurances made me feel so much better, and helped me get through a tough few days. Book bloggers really are the most wonderful people.