Dogsitting Schatze

I've been dogsitting Schatze, who happens to be my dog's best friend. Schatze is a little Shih Tzu mix and she and Fresca, our Miniature American Eskimo have been best buddies since they were puppies. They have a great time guarding our house from every imaginable predator in the neighborhood. "Imaginable" is the key word here. They see a predator in every person who walks by the house and every car that drives past. So it has been a noisy weekend as they've raced from the front bedroom windows to the living room windows and then strutted proudly by, looking at me as if to say, "Heh, heh....chased THAT one off, too!"

At any rate, my mom LOVES Schatze so I went over to the Assisted Living facility where she stays and brought her home to spend an overnight with us. After a joyous reunion with the dogs, they all settled in the living room for a piano concert. I played and the dogs and Mom sat attentively and listened. When I complained to Schatze's owners that she hadn't clapped after each number, they said, "Well, at least the dogs didn't howl."

As I turned off the lights last evening, Schatze curled up with Mom and the two slept snuggly in the same twin bed. It was a sight to behold. This morning, they were still cuddled up together. By the way, Schatze is a licensed therapy dog. If any of you have toyed with the idea of taking your dogs through the classes and training for that program, I'd highly recommend it. Just seeing the way Mom and Schatze interact together is proof to me that an animal with the proper temperament can really make a difference in a person's day, even someone suffering from various stages of dementia.

After tucking Mom and Schatze into bed, Fresca and I joined hubby George downstairs in the family room and watched a few episodes of the Dog Whisperer on National Geographic. They must have been running a marathon of past episodes. It was fascinating, as always, to watch. And I had some much-needed time to unwind and do some crocheting on my prayer cloths. Since I've joined the prayer-cloth ministry Yahoo group, I'm having a great time trying the different patterns out, especially since these little cloths don't take a long time to knit or crochet. I shall put a link to the group's homepage up as soon as I can get my husband to show me how to do so. In the meantime if you try this link: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Prayer_Cloth_Ministry/ it should take you to the homepage of the group where you can read about this great ministry.