One Year Ago

On December 10, 2008, I brought Cabana home. I picked her up at Guide Dogs for the Blind's holiday luncheon fundraiser, thinking she'd be ours for a year.

I think back on all the silly things we did as first time raisers. I was always worried that Cabana would sleep too much during the day and not sleep at night, like a human baby that has her days and nights mixed up. So I didn't want her to nap at all after 8pm. I did EVERYTHING I could think of to keep her awake--a lot of vacuuming, clapping, tickling, taking her outside into the cold night air. But no matter what we did, she'd fall asleep anyway. Of course now I know that we didn't need to go through such histrionics, since puppies sleep like narcoleptics.

I also remember our puppy group leader showing us how to do puppy handling, which is a daily exercise we do to get our pups used to being touched. We open their mouths and look at their teeth, look inside their ears and get familiar with how their ears smell, hold each paw, look between the toes, rub their bellies, and give a quick massage. I didn't think I'd ever be comfortable prying open Cabana's mouth--but after doing it a thousand times, it's like nothing to me now!

I don't think I realized before how much of my heart I held in reserve when I thought that Cabana was only ours for a year. I can't believe we ever thought about not keeping her as our pet--just thinking about that possibility breaks my heart! We really feel that we got the best dog in the world.

Cabana was with us last Christmas, and since she was so little then, we had to barricade our Christmas tree so she couldn't get to it. This year, we didn't barricade the tree, and Cabana hasn't touched a single ornament. In the photo above, I debated putting out these stuffed snowmen and Santa dolls. We put them on our stairs like this every year, but I thought maybe we shouldn't this year, so they wouldn't be a temptation for Cabana.

But Cabana is SO well-mannered. She hasn't touched a single one of them. She somehow knows that these toys are not for her. I don't really know how she knows this, especially since she loves to play with the singing Santa dog, which isn't all that different from these stair decorations. All I can say is, she's one smart cookie!