New senior pup! Happy Holidays to us!

Hubby and I will be extra busy this holiday season. We've missed having a fur baby around and adopted a senior pup on Saturday. She came with health issues, as many rescues do, but hers are treatable, unlike our previous hospice rescue. We have a wonderful vet who is helping us get the right treatments for her. We're into the day 4 mark and she is already getting more comfortable with us and our routines. We're learning her personality, which is quite mellow and loving, though I suspect more of it will come out as she starts to feel better and gets to trust us fully. 

Our first senior rescue that we picked up at a local shelter, crossed the rainbow bridge almost three years ago. She loved people and adapted to us right away. She had some separation anxiety, as they all do. And she was extremely well-behaved, except when she saw another dog. Then she did what we called the Linda Blair Exorcist thing. Our trainer said it was fear aggression most likely from being taken from her mother too early and never socialized as a puppy. Humans' fault, never the dog. It took over a year, but with positive reinforcement and the help of our trainer, we got her to tolerate one dog, a friend's senior golden, and though she would never tolerate any other dogs, she eventually calmed down on her walks and realized we would keep her safe. Though, we never went anywhere without treats in our pocket. We adapted her outings to this issue and she gave us six years of unconditional love and snuggles. I still miss her every day. 

As anyone who has adopted knows, the first few days with a new pup is tiring, because it's an adjustment period for everyone. Puppies are a lot more work than older dogs, another reason to love the little seniors! When they're sick or have abandoment issues, it means a bit more care for the humans in the household, but they're extremely grateful when someone adopts them and totally worth it. This is our third senior rescue. Our second was a hospice situation, which was also rewarding because she wasn't alone in her final days.

Since we work from home, we're the perfect household for a senior that needs some extra care. Our new baby doesn't have any issues with other dogs, but her physical problems mean she can only do short walks. We have a stroller from our previous seniors and she loves it already. She also loves car rides, so that means we can take her just about anywhere with us. We live in a very dog-friendly city, which makes our lives easier too. 

I took the week off from writing to focus on our new family addition and to help speed up the bonding process. Like babies, dogs take work on our part, some needing a little extra, but seniors are wonderful and have a lot of love to give, so happy holidays to us!

I wish each of you a wonderful holiday season and a safe new year.

Happy Halloween month!

October is our favorite month here in the desert because our high temperatures start to drop from the 100s into the 80s. Plus, Halloween is my favorite holiday. We've got all the decorations up and ave been watching Halloween movies, like Hocus Pocus and HP2. We'll soon watch Buffy and Bewitched Halloween episodes. October also reminds me of some jobs I worked between Hollywood acting and dancing gigs back in the 1980's. Gigs aren't guaranteed to last for a long time, and getting the next one can sometimes take a while, so we often worked other jobs to pay the bills.

Some weren't very memorable or were downright awful, but two companies, American Greetings and Joseph Markovits, were my favorites, just behind my Waldenbooks (I met my husband there) and my library page days. I don't need a lot of management when working and prefer jobs that I can do alone or with very little interference from others. Probably why I became a writer.

Markovits was a huge artificial flower company, and AG, well you probably know they make cards, wrapping and decor items. Markovits is long gone but AG is still around and seems to be doing well. Back in the day, I was allowed to take some retired items from both companies, and I still have a few of them that we use to decorate our current home and for various holidays.

I took care of the flower arrangements at the Markovits showroom so corporate customers could see the products when they came to town. I was a merchandiser for AG, which meant traveling to various stores to refill cards and put up current displays. The Halloween stuff was my favorite, of course. Nostalgia is a strong mistress, especially as we get older and the world changes around us, and I'll always have fond memories of those two companies, especially around the holidays.

If you're looking for Halloween reads, please check out my Desert Magick series with witches, ghosts, mediums and more at http://www.danadaviswriting.com/Desert%20Magick.html

Have a safe and fun Halloween!