Sandy and I dog-sat for her oldest son last week. It wasn't a problem because we've done it before. Tigger, our Doberman Pincer, gets along very well with Taco. They had a good time together-too good. I could see trouble coming when Sandy said, "Look at the fun they're having. We need to get Tigger a little sister to play with."
Now I've been fixed (not that I was actually broken), so I knew she wasn't talking about an up-tick in our love life. There's no baby in our future. From her constant perusal of Dog Rescue sites on the Internet, it was apparent she was thinking about getting another dog. Her interruptions into my vital blogging time, to show me photo after photo of different Weimaraners, was another subtle clue.
The next thing I know, we are on our way to take a look at Isabell. Izzy turned out to be a lovely, blue, fifteen month old Weimaraner. Our initial meeting should have been a clue. Izzy saw two strangers walk into her house and greeted us in what we learned is her usual manner. From across the room she let out a joyous bark and came charging. With tail wagging, ears flopping and an obvious smile on her face, she launched herself from about five feet away. Her front paws hit my solar plexus with roughly the same impact as a Mike Tyson knockout punch. When she saw I was turning purple and couldn't pet her, she abandoned me, jumped up on Sandy and tried to show her that she was the most important, wonderful person in the world.
Once I was able to breathe again I had a chance to look into Izzy's bluish-amber eyes. Almost hidden in their depths, I could see the intelligence residing there. . . or was it insanity? It's hard to tell when looking at a moving object, and Izzy was always a moving object.
Izzy's, "I've been waiting to meet you all my life, I love you, I love you, I love you!" greeting was enough to sell Sandy. I was a little more reserved and decided to talk to Izzy's owners to learn more. Barb and John were nice people-honest people. Barb said that the economy had forced her to return to work. With both of them working, they hated to have to leave Izzy caged all day (that was a clue). They had two other dogs which were not kept caged (that was another clue). Barb said that Izzy has a lot of energy and wears the other dogs out when she is running free (another clue). John laughed and said, "Yes, she's incessant" (another clue). Like I said, they're honest people.
Did you ever look up 'incessant' in a dictionary? The Encarta online dictionary defines 'incessant' like this: continuing for a long time without stopping. Synonyms included such things as nonstop, never-ending, ceaseless, unremitting and relentless (believe me, in Izzy's case, incessant is an accurate use of the English language). Izzy was in constant motion the whole time we were there, but it was a done deal. The 'I love you, I love you, I love you,' won out. Izzy went home with us.
Before we even got home, we had to stop at Petco to get matching beds and food/water bowls for Izzy and Tigger. Sandy got the stuff we needed while I was towed through the store at warp speed. We found places in that store the employees weren't aware of.
Once we got home, Izzy went into her Tasmanian Devil impersonation. She jumped up on everything in the house but the refrigerator . . . well, there is only three inches of clearance.
Tigger watched in amazement. Being the dainty lady that she is, she knows she's not allowed on the furniture, she knows she doesn't bark like a maniac, and she knows she's not supposed to try to chew on the ceiling fans.
Izzy discovered Tigger's food bowl and plowed through it like a John Deere tractor. Even if I could have pushed the stopwatch function on my watch, I doubt that the time would have registered before the bowl was empty. From the food bowl to Tigger's stuffed toys was a small step. If Tigger had twelve toys, that's how many Izzy was trying to juggle.
We put them both in the back yard to save what was left of the furniture, and Tigger finally found her element. They played at full speed; except Tigger's full speed was considerably faster than Izzy's. Tigger, with a Doberman Pincer's speed and grace, could run circles around Izzy. They would crash together like stallions fighting, and Izzy would break away and start running around the swimming pool with all the grace of a rhinoceros. Tigger, in a few flowing leaps would pass her by. Then she would run sideways and look back over her shoulder at Izzy. You could almost hear her saying, "Come on, you slowpoke."
It took almost an hour of this high-speed play before Izzy raised the white flag. She walked over to the patio and fell over as gently as a brick wall collapse. We discovered Izzy had two speeds: wide open and asleep.
Things calmed down after that. Izzy only had a couple more surprises for us. One of them was her magnificent head shake. Every once in a while she will shake her head violently. This causes her name tag and rabies tag to jingle together loudly and her long ears to whip back and forth, slapping against the side of her face with a noise like a whip cracking. It produces a sound reminiscent of Big Ben tolling during a thunder storm. I discovered all this the first time she walked up behind me and did it. Amazing the effect of an unexpected noise at close quarters. I discovered I could levitate for about four seconds.
Her final blessing was her manner of greeting the new day with a series of high-volume barks about four feet from our bed. Her enthusiasm has to be heard to be believed-and it arrives at 4 a.m. There was another revelation, I discovered I can levitate above my bed too.
All in all, Izzy has settled in. Little by little we are correcting her wilder moments. On a positive note, we laugh at her antics as she plays with all her toys-well, Tigger's toys, but after all, they're sisters now and they share.