ELSEWHERE

I thought it would be funny if I just WHERE'S PONYO'd until she arrived but it's taking a lot longer than I thought! I am trying to be patient vs frustrated because it's the shelter for the entire county and I think they genuinely are just that short-staffed and behind on veterinary stuff (since it doesn't make any sense to drag their feet on what would result in the adoption of an animal/opening a space). Still, though! I'll check back in with them on Wednesday after work and see if I can at least get an ETA, unfortunately they legally can't release her to me unspayed even if I were to make an appointment for my own spay.

Otherwise, I've been busy at work! I've had a pretty chill Saturday equivalent so far, though, which is nice.

doin some crafty bullshit

The mess on the right side was me smushing around some old paint I wanted to use up, I'm going to let it dry then cut out leaf shapes and try to make an autumnal collage

Being able to do crafts throughout the day in a dedicated crafting area has been huge for my general happiness levels

Oh and I'm only a few pages left on that junk journal before starting my next one, which I already have prepped. When I'm done with the old one I'll record me flipping through it to show it off, I'm very proud of how it turned out and will definitely continue it as a hobby

This had better make me cry for how expensive the tickets were

PONYO HERE

Let's talk about Ponyo!!!

First off I love her

Second off, she is very scared! But she is also very brave

I brought her home and immediately discovered she was afraid of jumping out of the car, but since we had more-or-less just met I really didn't want to pick her up (she also has recently been spayed, so I didn't want to accidentally aggravate her stitches), so I tried to coax her out with treats. This worked, but only after fifteen minutes of me standing in the pouring rain. Then I found out she is afraid to walk up stairs, which I could not successfully coax her up (though I did try both the back entrance stairs and the front entrance stairs, since the latter are much wider and less steeply-built). At that point I picked her up, which she was fine with, and since then I have had to pick her up to go up and down the stairs every single time.

It's fine, we'll work on it

When I brought her home she was afraid of hardwood floors, bowls (including ones that contain food and/or water), me standing up too fast, the couch, and basically any unauthorized shape or noise. Her fear response is to either cower or freeze, but she is very responsive to soft encouragement and to me sitting next to the scary thing to show that it's not so scary. She's also gotten brave about a lot of things pretty fast! Today, for instance, she drank from the metal water bowl and examined a squeaky toy. We're moving and grooving tbh

All I know about her history is:
she is approximately 2 or 3 years old
she has had puppies before
someone left her tied to the animal control door overnight
she came into them severely malnourished/starving to the point of hair loss and weakness, with pressure ulcers on her elbows and the tops of her feet, and with extremely long nails
oh and she also had pneumonia

Her feet are also-- like, normally dogs get pretty calloused toe beans once they're out of puppyhood, but hers are suuuuuuuuper soft, which makes me think that the environment she was in (especially considering the pressure ulcers) was one where she couldn't move or walk around much. She does kind of a wide-legged trot on a lot of surfaces, which might be due to that.

She sees the vet on Monday, so I'll ask some questions about her care going forward and make sure she's at a healthy weight and that there's nothing serious wrong with her feet or legs.

She is, most importantly, a very very good girl

also because she has virtually no body fat but is still a pit bull type dog she is 90% head right now

bobblehead daughter

This was her intake photo just to give you an idea of how far she's already come