Man's Worst Friend / Sally Comes Alive

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This is a story in contrasts, of black and white, salt and pepper, cuff and link.

A story of a restless night and an eventful morning.

And I am DOG tired right now...


Man's WORST Friend! (1am)
NO...not dogs!

Several years ago I was bit by a black widow. At least it sure looked like I was.

A few years back I went to bed and there was a black widow hanging from the ceiling directly over my me. Not a good way to get some sack time before work. I couldn't rest all night and felt like bugs were crawling on me every time the bed sheet would move.

Last night I was having dinner with some neighbors and ironically discussing black widows...I don't know why.

I go to sleep after a long day and Zoey jumps on the bed. I am still in "she's so adorable" mode so I let her sleep by my feet. By the time she stretches out there ain't a lot of bed left so I squeeze off to the side against the wall trying to get some comfort.

Whatever...I will only have her a little longer.

I haven't slept a full 6-8 hours since I got her, so what's another night.

Then I feel something crawling on me. At night I often feel a fly or a little bug here and there and brush it away. I leave the sliding glass door open slightly in case the dogs have to go outside to pee. It seems to work because I rarely have any mess in the house.

With new foster dogs coming and going, this method has worked. Yet...as of late I've been feeling little bite marks causing me to itch some.

I already got up an hour earlier because my feet were itching bad and put some cream on them.

I go back to bed and a few minutes later I felt this crawling creature on me that just felt different!

I turned on the light and see a dark spider.

NO WAY!

WAY!

It was a flippin' black widow. I went into kill mode as protector of the castle and smashed it between my sheets. Give me a break!

Now I can't sleep. I end up cleaning the entire ceiling of all webs and anything that remotely resembles a spider.

I was fearful of Zoey. The last thing she needs is a spider bite!

Life is a thin wire act.

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This morning I put the dogs out after last night’s horrible black widow experience. I slept maybe a few hours at best. Got up at 6am and decided to put dogs out to do their thing like every morning and something very strange happened.

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Sally Comes ALIVE! (6am)
What a stark contrast to last night’s most uncomfortable feeling, as I lay in bed thinking about when Wal-Mart opens to buy bug spray, mentally spraying every area outside and figuring out how to use the inside fogger.

Before bed last night, Sally was outside to do her thing and I heard the squeaky toy. I thought Zoey was still outside playing. I looked on the carpet and she was sleeping already. That meant Sally was actually playing!

This morning I hear the toy again and peer outside. If I actually go outside Sally becomes very self-conscious and loses the play in her.

I see Sally playing with the toy like Zoey and all the other foster dogs have, chewing it and thrashing. She then started running with it. Zoey got hold of this and ran after her then Sally chased her.

Sally and Mocha played like this at night.

That was the ONLY time I saw Sally’s tail ever raise higher than her back legs. She actually raised her tail above her tail bone like a normal, happy dog.

This is HUGE Sally news!

Sally is almost a year by now and larger than Zoey and about 5x quicker. She is an amazingly swift animal, similar to a gazelle. She has features that are not “dog-like” which is why she strongly resembles a coyote.

Zoey was a bit overwhelmed, but always came back at her. Yet she had enough after a few minutes. Sally was chewing on wood, the small ball, the squeak toy…she was running around like a little kid at the park.

It is very difficult to capture images of Sally because as soon as I go outside she shifts into stiff mode.

When she comes inside to the bathroom, she sits on her bed area like someone recovery from surgery. She will literally stay there all day long until I walk next to her to go outside. Which is why her behavior was so unlike Sally this morning.