Love you, amyth.

All my extra spoons are belong to you, sj.

Cagney!! Chill, son!

I know a lot of dogs who have fear responses to wheelchairs, strollers, etc.

Funnily enough, my brother's weirdo rescue sheltie does not have one. He always wants to lick my face off.(he freaks out about a million other things, though, poor guy.)

The move is going well but taking longer than we hoped.

Moving, man. It always does. Even when you know it will take longer than you think it will, it takes longer than that.

Good luck getting through the rest of the day!

Bonny, could it be the wheel chair that is setting him off? I know my crutches gets dogs barking sometimes.

omnis, I'm assuming that it is partly the chair, partly the smell and mostly that Roger is pretty calm, but has unbalanced energy.

Cagney!! Chill, son!

smonster, if you could say that directly to him, and have him hear you, that would be awesome.

We've just had our last training session with the Bulldog specialist. She sort of delivered a clue-by-four that has me feeling sad but...

She reminded me that I trained Bartleby to be serious and wanted me to be careful to not train the 'spark' out of Cagney. "In three years, he's going to be great."

It would be a dreary discourse to explain what this means philosophically, emotionally and spiritually to me, but suffice to say, it's big and very difficult.

You don't have to do it, bonny.

I guess I would just caution you, bonny, to see the dog that's in front of you.

Cagney is not going to fill the Bartleby sized hole in your heart. But your heart will learn to love this dog for being itself, if you can let that happen.

Let this be a well-trained Cagney instead of an inferior Bartleby.

Cagney is not going to fill the Bartleby sized hole in your heart. But your heart will learn to love this dog for being itself, if you can let that happen.

I've been learning this lesson myself. I adopted a shelter kitty a month ago (a cute orange tabby named Seamus). He will never fill my Mickey shaped hole, but he's worming his way into his own, Seamus shaped one.

We have a black kitty named Seamus!

It's the same with Simon and Wilson for us. Losing Byron left a huge hole. The two kittens will never be Byron, but we love and adore them and they fill their own place now.

Let this be a well-trained Cagney instead of an inferior Bartleby

Oh, absolutely. Even when I know I'm being unfair by feeling weary of having to teach something that came so much easier to Bartleby, I'm not trying to make Cagney in his image.

I actually like that he's so in love with dogs and people. His not being focused on ME is really just about safety and professional issues.

The thing is, I went so far as to get a tattoo last year to remind me to lighten up. I realized that I was too serious and wanted to bring more jovial and loving energy into my life. The very next week, Bartleby started dying.

Not much progress on that front, so far. Perhaps Cagney will force that with his stubbornness.