Casey Hoover

Lottie Moon has adjusted to everything in her new life so well, with the exception of one thing:  Bedtime.  I have a crate for her downstairs with Reminington's and Kannika's and Pete's crates.  I don't want her crate in my bedroom for several reasons, but mostly because of space.  My bedroom is not very large, and there is already one dog crate in there, I don't think I can fit another.
In the car, she is fine.  She rides in the back of my Jeep Grand Cherokee behind the barrier with either Tango or Pony.  She is calm and quiet and usually sleeps.  When I leave her in the car, I put my hand up to her to smell, and tell her I'll be back.  She is accepting of this, and there have been no problems.
But bedtime . . . . bedtime is another story!  She screams and cries for about 10 minutes each night, and then in the morning when she "hears" me get up, she starts the screaming again.  She bites at the crate door, and her blanket is always soaked with drool by the door.  I keep telling myself to be strong, but since it has been going on for almost a month, I don't think she's going to ever get used to bedtime.  I know that if I put her in my room that she will likely be fine, but I really don't see how I can do that.  The other option is to sleep on the sofa next her HER every night!
The solution presented itself last week in the form of a white kitty named Casey Hoover (he loves the vaccuume cleaner, thus the name).  I put Lottie in her crate one night, and she didn't cry.  I thought, wow, she must be REALLY tired.  The next morning I got up, and she still wasn't crying.  I was kinda worried when I went downstairs and still no screams.  I found her awake, and just quietly lying in her crate, "looking" out.  I opened the door and she bounded joyfully out into my arms, just like always . . . . but it was then that I noticed Casey Hoover as he calmly strolled out from Lottie's crate.  Hmmm . . . . .
The next night I went to put Lottie in her crate, I looked first, and saw Casey Hoover already settled in the back of the crate.  I put Lottie in with him, and crossed my fingers.  No screams.  I was a calm and peaceful night, and morning.
Did Casey Hoover just like the cozy crate, or did he realize that Lottie was scared and needed to be comforted by another warm body?  Three nights in a row Casey and Lottie slept quietly together, and on the fourth night, I found Sushi in Casey's place at the back of the crate.  sushi seems to have the same calming effect on Lottie Moon as Casey does.  And now a third kitty has offered to babysit -- I found Cricket in the crate one night, and so she and Lottie stayed together just as well.

It has been a week now, and Lottie is quiet in her crate with either Casey Hoover, Sushi, or Cricket with her.  I can't imagine they enjoy sleeping with a puppy, I'm sure they just like the cozy warm crate, but I do wonder  . . . . .

Lottie Moon

The first big hurtle for me was her name.  The shelter had named her Abby, and while that was cute and fit her okay, I felt like she needed a name with real meaning behind it.  I have theory, well proven by lots of anactdotal experience, that you must be very careful what you name your dog, because they will become it.  I knew a dog named "Havoc," who ran agility with extreme speed but completely destroyed the course with his explosive force.  Years ago I named my australian shepherd "Clark," and he grew to become the biggest dog nerd.  My border collie is named "Punch," and he literally jumps up and punches me when he's excited.  And then there is "Panic," who also runs agility courses with crazy speed.  This theory of mine, proven in my mind, is why one of my dogs is named "Peace."

So of course, little white deaf dog needed a perfect name that she would never hear, but would shape her life and personality, anyway!

I had a dream, where a little Native American woman told me to name her "Lakota."  I liked that name, but I feel like the Indian thing is SO overdone, and this puppy didn't have any kind of Native American connection.  I thought mabe I could find some Lakota word to name her, so I searched a Lakota dictonary online, but unfortunately the Lakota language is not a very pretty language, and I couldn't find anything I liked.  Next I came up with Indigo, which I liked a lot.  Indigo is the color of the aura of the highly spiritual and intuitive, thus the "Indigo Children."  But "Indigo" didn't seem like the name of a white dog, so I wasn't completely sold on it for my puppy.  Then I thought of "Lottie Moon."  The name Lottie Moon was a Southern Baptist missionary woman who went to China back in the late 1800s.  She was a highly spiritual woman who was a trailblazer, fighting for the rights of women in China back when even women in the US faced seeminlgly insurmountable inequality.  She was strong and tough and fought to help others.  And there was another woman named Lottie Moon who was a spy in the Civil War from Oxford, Ohio.  Two strong, independent women.  But the reality is that "Lottie Moon" is also the name of a bar at Miami University, where I got my BA.  I spent many hours waiting in line at Lottie Moon's, looking at that sign, and thinking that would be a good name for a dog . . . .  Besides, "Lottie" sounds similar sorta-kinda like "Lakota" . . . !
So Abby became Lottie Moon, but perhaps her full name might be Indigo Lakota Lottie Moon.  Wow, a big name to live up to for such a little pup.  But as I get to know her better, I think she can handle it.

Our Beginning

She's here.  After thinking and planning and plotting and stressing for months, we are finally together and beginning our adventure.  I'm not sure yet what all our life together will entail, but I'm surer than sure that it will be special.  How do I know?  It's a feeling, a driving force, subtle and not-so-subtle nudging from Spirit, and it is finally meeting her and seeing that she is just like I thought she would be.  Courageous and happy and intelligent and beautiful.  She's exciting!

Why would I want to adopt a blind and deaf australian shepherd puppy?  So many reasons.  It is facinating to me to try and get into her mind, to try and comprehend her world.  It stretches me as a trainer to try and figure out how to comunicate to her what I want, and then try to entice her to want to do it. It will make me a better trainer. 

And it stretches me as a human to try and comprehend another species with extra-sensory perceptions grown out of necessity to compensate for the loss of the more readily accepted senses of sight and sound.  What does she sense, what does she feel?  While I don't believe I can ever really know completely or understand, I like the mind-expanding possibilities a life with a dog like this can do for me. 

And finally, it stretches me spiritually to listen to the lessons that I can learn from her.  I've already had so many, and we have just met.  Here's an example: 

On January 12 before I went to bed, I was thinking, "Am I crazy to want to adopt a blind/deaf dog?  Is this the right thing to do?"  I decided to do a bit of bibliomancy, but instead of randomly opening to a page in a book, I picked up my copy of "The Book of Awakening" by Mark Nepo, which has daily readings.  I opened to January 12, and asked for guidance.  The title of the day's page was "Seeing Into Darknesss," and it was a story about facing fears to overcome them.  I smiled at the appropriateness, then I realized that it was 12:15 a.m., so it was actually January 13.  So I looked at the January 13 page, which began with the following haiku:

A blind child
Guided by his mother
Admires the cherry blossoms.
                  --Kikakou

The writing that followed was a beautiful piece about understanding each other's blindness, and our own, and helping each other through struggles and stumbles in life.  Nepo wrote, " Who knows what a blind child sees of blossoms or songbirds?  Who knows what any of us sees from the privacy of our own blindness -- and, make no mistake, each of us is blind in a particular way, just as each of us is sighted uniquely."

I knew this was what I was being guided to do.

So here we are, a month later, and it's been a crazy week of firsts.  First car ride, first meeting with the other dogs, first time exploring the back yard, first trip to Petsmart, first trip to the vet, first snow. We are definitely on our way!