patience and rewards

There are two things I want to tell you about today - Sophie, the foster cat, and our own dog Arlo. I don't mention Arlo often but today he deserves a blog entry. Aside from welcoming and loving every foster animal we bring home, Arlo has also started doing another type of volunteer work. He donated blood for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and although it took a long time, Arlo behaved wonderfully the whole time and came home very tired afterwords.

A few days ago we got a phone call from the Central Victoria vet clinic, which is where Arlo gave blood. They asked us to come in to pick up something at the reception desk. The owner of the dog who had received Arlo's blood had left him a present! He got a big bag of cookies, as well as a very nice card and a picture of the dog he had helped. She is beautiful golden retriever. They said thank you in the card and told us that she wouldn't have made it through her surgery without the blood. Mark and I were very surprised and touched that the family had thought to thank Arlo.

YAY ARLO!!

If you have a medium or large sized young dog, your dog might be able to give blood too. Just imagine - if your dog ever had an emergency like getting hit by a car, they might need to rely on a canine blood donor one day. Time to fill up the karma bank in advance!

Okay, I'm done preaching. On to Sophie. She is still making progress in teensy tiny steps. Yesterday I went in to spend some time with her, and it is obvious she is becoming more relaxed in our presence. She was looking out the window and didn't turn back to me when I was talking to her, so I brushed my fingers through her whiskers like we've been doing lately, and then I stroked the side of her neck! She didn't seem to mind! I wasn't wearing gloves, but we know her well enough by now that I was comfortable doing it. I did get one hiss while I was in with her, but like I've said before, it's just nerves and she settled down. This is the next step that we'll do over and over again til she's fine with it, and then we'll start petting her more eventually. She's doing great, and is so brave!

There is some action on the Epic adoption front - I will let you know when I know anything for sure. Cross your fingers!!