Puppies!

It's spring, and a young person's fancy turns to thoughts of (apparently)...

Puppies.

The neighborhood is crawling. Positively lousy with puppies. I think everyone has gotten one.

When I drive, when I walk the dogs, when I get the mail. Puppies. Everywhere. Who knew I was part of a trend?

This morning, for the first time, I left Kia behind when I took Tilly out for a quick pre-prandial morning stroll. If I don't have to walk until about 8:00, Kia's good to go. But on the mornings that I need to get the puppy walked earlier, she's so stiff that the walk is agonizing for all of us. Tilly, because we're going so slowly; me, because I'm trying to control 22 lbs of anxiously straining puppy at the end of the leash (I'm also not getting much of a cardio workout); and (I can only assume) Kia, who looks so stiff it's hard for me to watch. So, as equally hard as it was to see her face when I left this morning without her, I decided that discretion was the better part of valor and headed out.

It's very funny to walk Tilly after all of these years with Kia, for so many reasons. Kia is a long-legged dog. Very long-legged (in fact, I remember when we'd first gotten her and Grandmom told me that I was going to start to look like that dog if I spent any more time with her, and all I could think was "lean and long-legged? let me at it"). And Tilly isn't. So, where Kia always pranced in her younger days, picking her legs up merrily with each step, head held high in the air, Tilly swarms along down low on the ground, snuffling at everything.

We will start puppy classes (assuming all goes well) next Monday night, now that I'm done teaching Monday classes. I'm looking forward to the day when Tilly's under voice control, and we can walk together without quite so much reliance on the leash, if for no other reason than that I won't have to stop whenever she wants to give something a quick sniff. I'm also looking forward to having her understand the importance of heeling to my left side; whenever she gets a scant bit of leash, she crosses to my right, which drives me batty. Since we walk facing traffic, if she's on my left, I'm on the road side, which makes me feel better about her safety relative to cars, which are more likely to see me than her (as short as I am, she's shorter).

Today's a pictureless post, as I haven't got my camera, and it hasn't any new pictures on it in any case. However, thanks to an extended Senate meeting today, I finished the eighth repeat of the stars shawl, and will be starting on the ninth (and final) repeat. Anne has decided on an edging for the top bit, and will be sending that to me soon. I'm completely charmed by it (but then, we all know that I have an unnatural relationship with edgings), and can't wait to get started. Soon, my precious, soon... But now, I must go face the last independent study of the semester, after which there are no more students to see; just miles and miles of grading.