Yet?

Is it Friday, yet?

WHY NOT?

Day after tomorrow, Froggy!

It's only Tuesday and I feel like I've worked a month non-stop already.

Maggie Moo made a new friend yesterday on our 2nd walk of the day.  We take two walks if the weather cooperates, one in the morning before work and then one in the afternoon or evening.  It was 8:00 yesterday evening before we actually got out the door, it was hot and humid so we waited a little later than normal but I'm thinking that we're going to keep our 2nd walk later in the day through the summer.  Anyway, Maggie Moo is a pretty quiet dog.  She "talks" but she doesn't bark very often and also doesn't "baroo" too many times.  (Beagles have a particular call which sounds like Baroo.)  When she does "baroo", it is in a very deep voice and also very L.O.U.D.  We were heading up the street and I noticed a lady walking a fairly large dog.  Maggie Moo noticed them too, and she started barking.  Seriously barking.  With a few "baroos" thrown in for good measure.  I attempted to make her hush, which was hard - and it normally is pretty easy.  She just about yanked my left arm out of the socket in her haste to go see this other dog, she was not being aggressive and I could tell she was in Friend Mode.  The other dog was very skittish, but the owner made it come towards us - I could tell she was working on training it.  When the got closer, I realized that it was not a dog.  At all.  It was a wolf.  A very young one.  4 months old in fact, and her name is Luna.  She is absolutely gorgeous.  They tend to be skittish in new situations and it can take them a while to warm up to new people and animals.  She was actually a little scared of Maggie, her owner and I both worked them through meeting and Maggie was fine once she got to touch noses.  Luna was still a little unsure, but she eventually came up to me and (very quickly!) touched my hand with her nose - and then retreated behind her owner.  I think that the owners name is either Laura or Laurel, she's working on establishing her dominance over Luna and is also working on socializing her.  They have two other dogs, one is a lab and I've seen him jumping over 6 feet - straight up!  The other day is an older female and is actually about 3/4 wolf.  The older female is the dominant dog in their pack and now they are teaching Luna that they are dominant.  I've had to do that with "regular" dogs before and sometimes it's hard.  Luna eventually came up to me again and Laurel held her still for a while and then had me pet her.  Talk about soft!  Very fluffy and very sweet natured.  She will make a very good member of their family, she needs a lot of work but she'll get there.  I hope we see her again.  We probably will.

We walked the furkids together for a while, Luna has learned to move over and sit down when a car comes - Maggie Moo is still working on our prompt for cars.  "Car, With Me" means that a car is coming and we need to move to the curb, and that Maggie is to be very close to me.  "With Me" means that she needs to slow down/speed up/quit goofing around and come stand by me.  She's getting it but it's taking a while.  Beagles are stubborn and not always smart!  (She did learn very fast what my water bottle means and she has figured out her own way to ask me to get water into her cup - she stands up, puts her feet on my knee and makes a specific vocalization.)  By the time we got to the end of the street, Luna was a lot more relaxed and I think she'll be fine.  Maggie Moo was totally chilled out, she was happy to have another dog to walk with us.

For the most part, wolves are illegal to own but their are some specific types that are allowed.  But you don't just go to the pet store and buy one, the process includes a permit and it used to be restricted to Native Americans but I'm not sure if it still is or not.  Possibly, specific breeds are.  I think I'd love one, but it's not something I'll ever consider seriously.  I don't think that more of them should be domesticated, they are wild and should stay that way.  But the ones that have already been domesticated and have had several generations of domesticity are a different story, they are canines and bond with their den mates which includes their people.  They aren't really able to be returned to the wild.  They are very intelligent animals, we have already had a good taste of a dog with a lot of wild ancestors - Frasier was a lot of coyote and a little dog thrown in, after all.  Wolves, wolf/dogs and coyote/dogs tend to bond very strongly with their people.  Knowing what we now know about them, I'm kind of surprised that Frasier took to us so fast and that he bonded with us (me, mostly) so completely.  He had a lot of behaviors that I never really worried about (they weren't bad), and probably didn't blog about them either, that really made his non-dog-ness very obvious.

This is long enough, so I'm going to his the "publish" button on this now.