Maggie Demands Equal Time

I write a lot about our camelid residents, but Maggie has informed me that I've been remiss.  I have excluded our canine residents (but really, they kept saying they weren't quite ready for their close-ups).

This is my beautiful pup, Maggie.  We met at a pet rescue.  She was originally billed as a lab/Weimaraner mix, but based on several key characteristics, the vet told us that she is a lab/greyhound mix .  As she's gotten older, the "lab" part has come to the fore, and the "greyhound" part of the mix has capitulated to gravity and middle-aged spread (kind of like me).  Ultimately, though, we'd most accurately classify her as a "goodie-hound".

Maggie is a nurse-dog.  If you're home sick, or if you're sad, or if you're just out of sorts, she will snuggle close to you with a very worried expression, as if to say, "Are you okay?  Are you okay?  Can I get you anything?  Ooh, squirrel!......Are you okay?  Can I get you anything?  Just a second....shiny thing!  So are you okay?"

Maggie is where all toys containing squeakies go to die.  She's never met a squeaker she couldn't get out of a plush toy.  With absolute focus, and single-minded purpose, she will nibble (with her front teeth) at the seams of any toy containing a squeaker until she creates a hole large enough to extract the squeaker.  She will then gnaw on the squeaker until it squeaks no more. 

Maggie also has a very keen sense of style.  When she and another of our canine residents were arguing about who was top dog, she got a couple of puncture wounds on her chest.  The vet had to shave her chest and insert drainage tubes, in order to make sure the wounds didn't get infected.  We needed to cover the tubes so that they wouldn't catch on anything, so our solution was to have her wear a T-shirt of Jerry's.  She LOVED that T-shirt.  She pranced around like a runway model, and thought she was Tyra Banks.  To this day, any time Jerry gets a T-shirt out, she gets so excited she can't sit still.  Kind of like how I feel at a DSW sale.

She sleeps on our bed, and if she thinks we've stayed up too late, she will perform what we call "doggie turn-down service".  In order to get us to come to bed, she'll drag ALL of the blankets down to the bottom of the bed, as if to say, "Look, I've got it all ready for you.  Hurry up so I can continue my nap!"

She is sitting outside my office right now, waiting for me to get done with this post, because she's decided it's bed time.  I'd better go, or I'll end up re-making the entire bed.