Happy, Light Being in a Fur Coat

My little pup Happy is growing into a beautiful dog. Don’t get me wrong, she is still totally a puppy at 11 months old, however, I am starting to see some of her training really “stick”.
Her trainer and major fan, Melanie,has been a wonderful influence teaching her and helping me to train her through positive reinforcement.Melanie used to say that Happy had an evil twin called Snappy that came out on occasion and I was well aware of this side of her. For that reason, I felt that a firm but gentle trainer would be the best thing for both of us as well as for the sanity of the cats who she adores.

Being an astrologer, I could see the wild side of my angel in her chart and those aspects would create more problems if handled with domination. Truly whenever I tried that misguided path with her, it brought out more aggressive traits
Now simply pausing, when possible,to give her a few minutes of good attention when she is just starting to act out changes her back to her wonderful mellow self. Often when I am writing on the computer as I am now for an extended period, she would fuss and nip and now that I am stopping to hug her when she does it she comes gently and waits for her hug.

It gives us both such pleasure to relate that way with each other because bottom line all she wants to really do is please me and all I want to do is love her. When this offering of good will fails to get her in a positive space quickly I will stand up and act like the biggest baddest dog ever and she settles right down. If she persists in mouthy behavior nipping me ,I whine like a wounded pup and she stops immediately. I am thrilled by how well she and I have grown to communicate our needs in a way that gives us both more of what we want more of the time.

This dog is a trainer’s dream student being both intuitive and incredibly intelligent. What’s more, she loves to do tricks and perform. Happy totally blew Melanie away when she found and clicked the clicker that Melanie uses as a training device before giving her her treats. Clearly Happy figured that if she gets a treat when the clicker clicks then she herself could click it to make a treat appear.According to Melanie, no other dog has ever even tried to do that.
When Guy,one of the owners of Earth Pets first met Happy , he told me that her breed are real “Einstein dogs”and he is certainly right.
A couple of months ago Melanie and I were standing around wondering where we had left off in Happy’s training as it had been a good 3 weeks since she had a real lesson. While we were scratching our collective heads,Happy, dog genius,looks at us bright eyed and let’s out a single bark.The last trick that we had taught her was to speak and she wanted us to know that was where we had left off!
This week she surprised us again with her brilliance when she offered us last week’s new trick,”Say your prayers” without being asked.
Can you tell that I am just a slightly proud mother?

I have also discovered over these months of living with Happy that she is a total mimic and imitates the cats the horse and even me. My mare Chinamoon also loves to perform and do tricks so when I go out to do trick for treat with China, “little miss me too” as I call Happy at times, vies for the horse biscuits so I have to break them up and have them take turns doing tricks.

Whatever the cats do,wherever they sit and whatever they eat,Happy wants the same and I do believe that Happy thinks she is a cat. I discovered the reason for Happy’s not wanting to eliminate while on her leash was because cats hide their business. That must have been one funny conversation between Happy and Star and Red Bear with the cats berating her puppy self for leaving her excrement where anyone could see. After all, she lives with a pack of cats and cats do have their standards to uphold dontcha know.
The first dog that she ever took a shine to was a small black dog like herself and they met at Earth Pets where I work monthly doing Animal Readings and healing. It turns out that this other dog lives with cats and thinks she is a cat as well. I am sure that when they first sniffed each other, they both rejoiced to have found another real cat/dog at last. Seeing themselves as paragons of doggie behavior.

Nothing excites Happy like a road trip no matter how small. I lean down to her soft ears and whisper,”Ya wanna go on an adventure?”
Her eyes dance with enthusiasm as does every other part of her.
She loves riding in the car too and turns even a simple trip of errands into a joyful event for me as we slip away from Moonhaven all by ourselves. Its quite a picture with me at the wheel and Happy cuddled up next to me with my right arm wrapped around her and her left paw on the wheel. I figured that she puts her paw on the wheel to imitate me.
Her black fur glistens in the sunlight like black silk and she grins from ear to ear watching the birds as the world goes by. Happy actually turned out to be a smaller dog than I expected her to be however it turns out that she is the perfect size for me. She probably weighs about 40 lbs and is likely to stay near that size. If you were to look at her you might think that she was a miniature black Golden Retriever. People stop me on the street to ask how I get her coat so shiny and honestly its just the good food that I give her. She is a beauty inside and out.

When I take her on one of our special jaunts to the Keystone Farmer’s Market, she is absolutely the life of the party.
Happy actually is developing a following, I mean the girl has major fans who are thrilled by her almost weekly appearance. The first one on the right is the Honey Lady who absolutely adores Happy and tells me weekly if I ever get tired of her…..,yeah right like that would ever happen.Children stop delighted to be cuddled and cuddle her divine softness. Old folks stop and pet her and remember dogs that they used to have. My friend Connie who shared this journey with us this week called the place,”Happy’s receiving line with tables set up while they wait for her.”
The Bread Lady and her son who make freshly ground,whole grain organic bread always ask for Happy even when I go into their store without her and are quick to give her pieces of their special Morning Glory muffin.
An elderly women selling her needlepoint is fascinated by Happy and wonders what kind of dog she is. I explain that she is part Flat Coated Retriever,Golden Retriever, and Border Collie.
The Crab cake man sees Happy and calls to her in his European accent,”Oh Happy I have something just for you!” She is so excited to see him that she leaves her treat on the ground until she adequately shows her exuberant gratitude. Clearly she makes everyone’s day a whole lot brighter,just like she daily makes mine. My girl is a Rock Star let’s face it. Happy has never met a person or animal that she didn’t like and if she did, I would probably hide from them myself.

Words cannot adequately express how much joy this one little dog has brought into my life. Most mornings I wake up with her sleeping next to me or on me with brother Star rarely too far away. Typically she will rise early and run outside with the cats and after she is finished with her doings, she comes bolting in and leaps on top of me with the cool or heat of the outdoors still clinging to her soft fur. This morning hug starts off with Happy laying vertically on top of me with her paws on my shoulders and her face placed close to mine. How could your heart not melt with this little black face peering into your soul, and those eyes!
This position will last for awhile til she gets drowsy and then she starts to slide to a more horizontal position which is actually more comfortable for me until she slides even further and then I give her hind end a gentle shove as she falls sound asleep next to me. Believe it or not, Happy likes to sleep in and stares at me as if I am crazy on the occasions when I get up early to tend to Chinamoon as I did today when there was an early storm rolling in to Melrose.

One of Happy’s jobs here at Moonhaven is to go out with me to feed China. I held 8 week old Happy up to my mare Chinamoon and told her,”This is your horse”and likewise told China that Happy was her pup. They seem to have their own interesting relationship worked out now. Recently, an Old English Sheep Dog was here for a treatment and when he was leaving, I let Happy go out to play with him. Chinamoon was out there as well and immediately stepped between Hap and the new dog as if to say,”You will not hurt my puppy!” That was the first time that I had seen her protective bond with her puppy so clearly and I loved it. Then China began to lick and groom the sheepdog. I have never seen China groom any of my dogs so I don’t know if it was because he was sick or because she thought he was a sheep.
As Happy has matured, her herding instinct has shown up when she thinks that she can get away with herding China into her pasture and barn. She runs behind her triumphantly with head held high while China’s long tail dusts her puppy face. Once in the barn, Happy bounces around barking as if she is totally in control of the situation until Chinamoon turns her head and snorts at which point Happy scatters as fast as she can in any and all directions appearing like a whirling dervish in the paddock sand.
This is Happy’s favorite play time so I usually go into the yard armed with a toy or two or even a stick because once she has felt her power as a herder she wants to run,jump,race,whirl and play with anything in sight. If no toy or cat is available for a good game of chase, then I become the chew toy which is most undesirable. I have been actively discouraging this behavior. For some reason she just loves this ratty old torn tennis ball which she tosses high into the air for herself over and over diving into the small dunes that China creates where she sleeps. Then comes the digging. I ask if she is digging to China and remind her that China is only in her stall and she needn’t work too hard. They all have a woody fenced acre or so to run and play with many places of wonder and enchantment.Sometimes Happy chases the cats and sometimes they hide and jump out at her from underneath a thick Sago Palm.

Star and Red Bear have even taught Happy how to climb up one side of the ancient Grandmother Tree although once she got up on top of the bridge like space, she carefully found her way back down the horizontal trunk to the safety of Mother Earth. Their varieties of dog and cat play are legion. Most of the time Happy is running after the cats but sometimes I can see Star running to find Happy to instigate some new adventure The Hapster loves to stand over Red and groom him and I have seen Red do the same for her. Even Jaz , the black crone cat and matriarch, has rubbed noses with Happy when she is not in her hellion phase. Because Star is my “Velcro – cat”, I was concerned that he would be jealous of Happy when she arrived but that could not have been furthere from the truth,Star absolutely adores Happy and actually sees himself as her protector. When I am looking for Happy outside, Star always tags along if he thinks I am having trouble finding his charge. With 4 cats,an Appaloosa mare, and a Happy pup,each day provides me with new adventures and exhibitions of animal behavior that I heretofore may have thought impossible or at best unlikely.

Happy seems to have created yet another job for herself but for the life of me, I do not know exactly how she manages this. Typically, I do not let her in my office when I am doing readings for a client unless they request her presence. She is not yet mature enough to have reliable office manners and is most likely to want the client to play with her. Sometimes there is nothing more healing than having Happy snuggles up with them in one of the ample chairs. She has learned to patiently wait outside the door or busy herself elsewhere. Recently I have started to notice that she has picked up the habit of scratching the door at exactly an hour after the session begins which is exactly when it should end. If it hadn’t been so consistent, I would not have noticed but she is on the money with time! A week ago when I was taping a musical segment for one of my radio shows, Happy suddenly barked at exactly 3 minutes before the music was supposed to end. I don’t believe that I have sent her any messages to do this but somehow she just knows these things.

Aside from her legion of adoring fans, Happy actually has some good human friends aside from me. Actually, they are more like her Aunties and see her regularly.
Cathy is a friend who comes over to help me for a few hours a week and she and Happy have a very special bond. I can always tell when she has arrived because Happy takes off from wherever she is and flies to be by her side. They love to hug and cuddle each other and as Hap presses her furry face against Cathy’s Cathy asks her if she has any secrets to tell her while little Hapster nuzzles her ear joyfully. I know that Happy gives her friend all the love in her heart at that moment which is a lotta love

Maureen is another animal loving friend and we initially bonded over our mutual love for Chinamoon. She has really helped me heal a terrible wound to her back left hoof and in the process, we created a trick horse. When Happy arrived Maureen fell in love with her as well and endeavored to be a voice of discipline for my wild little puppy. Eventually it started to work as Happy’s training started kicking in.
Maureen,Happy and I journeyed down to my parents place in Delray Beach which was quite the road trip. 5 hrs in the car and Happy could not have been better except for the fact that she would not relieve herself whenever we stopped to give her the opportunity.
This resistance to eliminating while on the leash became a real problem over the whole weekend. Maureen and I took turns taking Happy onto an adjoining property as she was technically not supposed to be in this neighborhood. It became the weekend of waiting for the pee 8 times a day most often unsuccessfully. At home she can walk out of either door and romp in a huge fenced yard and relieve herself anywhere that she wanted and she has always been a mystery eliminator so we were having a time. At one point Maureen reported that Happy suddenly lurched forward so hard and fast that my friend was literally airborne before getting her footing. I don’t know who was happiest to touch down on the welcoming earth of Moonhaven at the end of that weekend. At least my parents liked their new furry granddaughter.

This morning, Happy awoke slowly with Star and I but then busied herself outdoors while I prepared everyone’s breakfast. Because I am needing to be more mindful of my Blood Sugar while taking this antibiotic which makes it tank easily, I feed myself first. Usually I am on the bottom of the food chain here.Happy kept trying to get my attention and grab my arm to take me outside much of the morning and at one point, I really did start to feel like she wanted me to go see China. After all, I have put her in charge of looking out for her horse As a matter of fact there was a part of me that was really taking in her message of urgency but for some reason I was ignoring her. I will never let that happen again as she was probably seeing and or feeling China’s distress.
When I finally did get out to feed China,sadly I omitted one of my first items on the check list before feeding the Mare Goddess. I did not check to see if she needed a homeopathic before her food. China can tend to get a little colicky if I am not careful so I have learned to dowse everything [by using a pendulum] before putting it in her bucket.
China ate most of her feed and proceeded typically to the barn where I gave her her 3 flakes of coastal and peanut hay.I was anxious to see if the swelling around her eye had subsided since the night before and it had however after a few bites of hay, she laid down in her stall which is not typical behavior. at all.
I hate it when this happens and I ran back to the house to get her homeopathic Nux Vomica which generally works to bring her out of a colic. Rather than run back with me as she usually does,little Happy stayed with her big ailing sister and guarded her til I returned. You could see that she was worried about China and it was written all over her sad little face. My friend Brenda came over to help me get her up and fortunately this was not a serious colic,however any colic can go really bad really fast. I will never second guess my wise little pup again that’s for sure.
Maureen came over to help China out as well later on and cleaned up her eye even more than she had the night before. I had intuited that her swollen eye was caused by a bug bite and Maureen agreed. I gave China a good dose of Apis, a homeopathic for bee stings and bug bites and her swelling receded within minutes. I love when that happens.

Because Happy is such a affectionate dog, I have wondered if she would become a good watchdog as well as a great companion and my question was answered a few nights ago. I was relaxing in my bed watching a little TV when Happy flew into my room,jumped onto the bed and stood over me barking and growling. I cannot tell you whether there had been some strange animal outside or a spirit or something else but this little dog was bound and determined to put her body between me and it. She had that “by any means necessary” look in her eyes and her barred teeth would have warded off anything
My heart swelled with pride at the courage of my young protector
.
There is never a dull moment with a houseful of animals and when they all work together as a family it is a beautiful thing to behold.
Tomorrow is Happy’s first birthday and I am having a little party for her with her furry family of course and Melanie,Cathy, and maybe Maureen. This should be fun and I know my little girl will be thrilled and not know who to hug first.

Mealnie,Happy and I turned out to be the main celebrants on this evening asa Cathy becamse ill at work and stopped by long enough to hug her furry friend and give her some great toys and contribute a roasted chicken to the birthday feast.Melanie brought Happy a wonderful octupus toy that she marched around proudly clutching in hert teeth. Cathy’s parrot toy is another of Happy’s new faves as it takjs back when squeezed and that feature in this and other toys sees to turn her on a lot.
I had a healthy cinnamon swirl cake and I cut a piece of it for Happy and covered it in the puppy ice cream treat that Melanie brought and plunked a lovely small silver candle in the middle as we sang Happy Birthday Dear Happy…It was so great to see her dark eyes dance with delight at all the fuss being made over her and you could sense her anticipation for her birthday treart yet the lit candle gave her cause for pause. We made wishes for Happy’s long happy and healthy life,blew out the candle and let her dive in to her ice cream and cake.
This was one happy day for a Happy pup. Of course Happy thinks all holidays are for her because they all are preceded by the word Happy.

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