Speaking of dogs, and feel-good stories.

The dog who is responsible for Bartleby being in my life is named Hagrid. I fell in love with him 9 years ago when my friends S&S adopted him. I'd keep him when they went out of town and, well, he just stole my heart. He looks a lot like Bartleby...part Basset and goodness knows what else.

Over the years, S&S adopted another dog and had two kids. Things started going very wrong when the two dogs took to fighting...not tussling, but fighting to the point of wounds that would make you want to faint, just looking at them.

Many bahaviorists, trainers, products, enclosures, etc. later, the call went out last week that S&S were going to put Hagrid down if they could not find a home for him by noon on Wednesday. Apparently, a child got in the middle of one of the fights and was bitten on the lip. Not catastrophic, but more than bad enough.

The word goes out on facebook and two days later, Hagrid has a new home...in MN...he currently lives in SF. Road trip!

How wonderful is social networking. Dozens of shelters and sanctuaries turned him down. (even Best Friends, which sort of alarmed me) But this lovely couple in a far away state, who never met S&S, but was friends of someone they are friends with, opened their home to him. (no kids and no other dogs, thank god...though, if I'm honest, I am taking Hagrid's side on this one...he's not the instigator...but he is the finisher, which I suppose is bad enough.)

I'm just so relieved because, if push had come to shove I would have to have stepped in. That would have been really, really hard for me...and I could not, in good conscience, keep him with Bartleby. But niether could I see him be killed. So, a huge PHEW from me and endless gratitude...plus free pet coaching for as long as Hagrid lives to his new people.

Thank doG. Sometimes things really do work out in miraculous ways.

Yay, Nora!

Boo, person on phone to Aims!

Urk, Ginger.

That's pretty much all I've got this morning.

How wonderful for Hagrid. I have a dog who was almost put down because people were afraid to deal with his issues and he is, of course, the most wonderful dog ever, except for my previous two dogs and other Canis lupus Buffistis.

Mr Peabody did get out in all the confusion, as both doors got opened. He didn't head for the hills, because of his important duty to protect the house from the sudden influx of strangers. He barked, but didn't even try to bite a fireman. I was relieved when I realized they wore boots he could never get through. He's friends with my neighbors and they helped me get the leash on him in what was probably only about five minutes, although my sense of time was pretty skewed by that time.

I feel like I was also beaten by something doing the excitement, but I know that's stress. I woke up with both hands painfully clenched.

bonny, that's great to hear. Bolsters my shaky faith in the goodness of humans.

Just saw the internal medicine specialist vet about Leo. Diagnosis is still unclear. He's doing better on the antibiotics and it's possible that he just has a bacterial infection. His belly still hurts, though, so we decided to go on and do the ultrasound, which will either indicate what's wrong (inflamed pancreas, inflamed kidney, obstruction in the intestines, etc etc argh) or else, well, it won't show anything wrong. So, a possibility that we'll get no definitive information, but we might; we might at least narrow it down or eliminate something, and I want to do whatever possible to find out what's wrong.

My gosh, this is awful. I feel confident that he's in good hands, but the thought that he might have a chronic, potentially life-threatening disease is making me want to cry. I'm trying not to think about it; I hope I'm just borrowing trouble. Kinda hard to focus on work today.

smonster, I don't think I have your number. My profile address is good; fire it off to me!

Too many fire stories. Yikes! Glad folks are ok.

Aims & Smonster ((((( )))))

Hil, that is fab.

IOmeN- past out in fluffy. Seems I'm a couple miles from Signal Hill and get a bunch of over air signals pretty good with basic old rabbit ears. Right now waiting for fridge delivery. So far, 90 min late. But hey, it's free! This after noon I get the gas on, and hot water!!

I'm really craving a burger, the only place that I don't have to drive to is McDonalds.

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{Ginger, Aims, smonster, Zen, anyone else who could use it}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

And congratulations, Hil! Very exciting news.

Wow, rough Monday. Many hugs to Ginger, Aims, smonster, and Zen, but congrats to Hil for becoming a finalist on the post-doc.

I am having a similarly crappy Monday but am trying to think positive.