Sucker for punishment?

Our dogs arrived last night. Baggins is 4 months, and Alyssa is 1.5 yrs. We had a rough time initially - they were extremely restless and nervous. Baggins kept having whining and shaking fits. Heartbreaking, really.

But then, at around 9pm they started to play with each other, and that made ALL the difference. Suddenly they realised that neither of them was alone, and that maybe this new life would be a good one. Incredibly, they went to sleep in the kitchen with barely a fuss. Alyssa whined for all of about 3 minutes, and then neither said a word until we got up this morning (and discovered their little presents on the kitchen mat).

Baggins appears to be house trained to a large extent already (thank God!). He was filthy when I fetched him - covered in fleas and (probably pig) poo. We had to leave the car windows open overnight to get the smell out. Needless to say, he went straight into the bath when we got home. He's a sweet little thing - quite calm when he's not playing with Alyssa. He's already trying to assert dominance over Alyssa, but I think she'll soon stop taking his nonsense. I took him to the vet this morning to get his innoculations (meant to get him micro-chipped, but forgot). The vet seems to think he may also have mange. Great. But we'll soon get him sorted. He's also rather undernourished - his little ribs really do stick out. Other than that though, he's perfectly healthy and very cute. (Not so cute when he refuses his chew toys and chews Nellie's dolls instead!) Good thing he won't be in the house unsupervised.

Alyssa is very nervous. Given her history of abandonment, I'm not surprised. She's also EXTREMELY jealous of Baggins. It has been very tiring trying to manage her while we've been trying to de-flea Baggins. But she is very sweet. The way that she and Baggins play together is also very cute - they are bound to keep each other occupied during the day while we're out.

Anyway, all this running around getting them and handling them in the first few hours, and handling Nellie who doesn't understand why they don't want to play with her (and is VERY upset about that - after all, these are HER dogs!) is exhausting.

Exhausting.

But we start half days at school on Monday, so things are getting easier already.