Background on the dog.

At the end of baseball season last year, we acquired a puppy. She was one of a litter of puppies found out at the ball field stuck in a storm drain and near drowning. She was rescued by one of the boys on Tween's team. His family fostered her and they named her "Parker" because she was rescued at the park. She hung out with the team and was such a sweet little thing that we just couldn't resist and home she came to be rechristened "Abigail Mary Parker Blank" - a great Southern Catholic name. More than one middle name: one referencing family history and one referencing a Saint. In this case, the Saint is Mary, because Abigail joined our family in the month of May when we take time to honor our Blessed Mother. And of course like most good Southern names, her full first name will never be used except in anger - on a day to day basis she's just Abby.

Abby is a black lab mixed with something. The something has curly hair and maybe a lighter color because Abby has thick wavy fur and auburn highlights. She has soulful brown eyes and had - past tense - sharp puppy teeth. She has grown from that sweet 10pound baby puppy to a 40+ pound six month old dog. In the process, she lost her baby teeth and now has large but duller adult teeth. Thank goodness! I was looking like a teen girl with cutting issues my arms were so scratched up. And she is not as nippy as she used to be. She started nipping to get attention. As I was laying down on the couch with my arm thrown over my head, she nipped me under the arm. It made quite a bruise what with the tender under arm skin. Somehow, she got me in the exact same place on the other arm so I had a matching pair. Just a few days later, I was in a training at the hospital and they showed us how bruises in that location could be an indication of domestic abuse - being held against your will so firmly that you get bruised under your arms. So between the bruises and the cuts on my arms from puppy bites, I'm lucky the police didn't come to the house to check out the ex-Marine for abusing me!

The first weeks at our house, Abby was up throughout the night as if she was an infant. Just like with all our other babies, ex-Marine could sleep right through the crying barking and I was the one up with her during the night. We bonded. I'd take her out for a peaceful/sometimes scary walk on our pitch black dirt road and then come in and lay together - a sleeping puppy in the crook of my arm. I love my puppy. But I did get tired and little by little she stopped actually going to the bathroom on our late night/early morning wasks and I realized it was time for her to "bark it out". It only took a night or two of ignoring the nighttime barking before she was sleeping through the night. Just like with my other babies, I kind of miss that quiet time alone together but I really truly enjoy a full night's sleep. Probably even more now that I am a wee bit older than when I had my biological children!

So that's all the background you need on the dog just so that tomorrow ( or the next day) I can write this...My psychic connection with my dog.