Pet Therapy

Ever since I stumbled across MS blogdom I've been crawling around MS blogs, totally gobsmacked at the number of knowledgeable, insightful, eloquent, witty people are out there writing about life with MS. But really, it can get to be a bit much after a while, don't you think? I need to write about something else. So.

Introducing one of our live-in therapy dogs: Summit Grin and Bare It (Bareit, to his friends). Bareit is a 2 1/2-year-old whippet. We adopted him in February from his breeder, through a referral from Whippet Rescue and Placement. Lucky for us, he didn't much like dog shows.

He settled seamlessly into our pack (packs have seams? Who knew?), and doesn't seem to mind, or even notice, the pea underneath all those dog beds.

He hasn't (yet) convinced Ernie, our 11 1/2-year-old retired racing greyhound,  that sharing a bed is a good thing -- not for lack of trying.

Tuffy only had a second to snap this picture before Ernie stomped off in a huff, looking for a bed that wasn't infested with whippets. It's not a problem at night, of course, because Bareit is at the foot of our bed, under the covers. Aside from their profound difference of opinion over the bed thing, he and Ernie are really pretty good buddies.

Bareit is Scarecrow's little red and white shadow. He likes to chase a ball, adding many superfluous, high-speed laps of the yard to each retrieve. His favorite game is 'chase me', which he somehow always wins. It's been a while since he destroyed a pair of shoes or a set of ear buds, but I think we're just getting better at keeping them out of his way.

When we get bored, bad things happen.

A Gordon setter breeder I know once described her attachment to her one special heart dog by saying, "He makes me laugh." It's a magical thing. Bareit makes us laugh.