Society girl

When we first learned about the opportunity to raise Beverly, one of my biggest concerns was that Steve and I had long ago committed to attending a conference in Las Vegas in the middle of July. We couldn’t take a 3-month-old puppy with us to it, and it’s not the easiest thing to find puppy-sitters, even within CCI, for dogs that young. But this was one of the many times the CCI village stepped up. With assurances from various individuals, Steve and I took the plunge. And last week Beverly got an early taste of how interesting life as a CCI trainee can be.

First we heard from Lisa Matthews, who’s raising Kora (the former best friend of our last CCI pup, Kyndall). Being 6 months younger than Kyndall, Kora won’t enter advanced training until November. But Lisa gamely welcomed Beverly into the 2-bedroom, upper-story condo she shares with Kora. Although I’ve written a lot already about how sleepy Beverly often is, Lisa reported (after the visit) that being in Kora’s presence electrified our little girl. “She would run across the room and dive-bomb Kora.” Apparently Kora took this abuse in good humor; the two wrestled and played for hours on end.

Amazingly, puppies are undeterred by being less than a third the size of their attack victims.

Lisa also bravely took both girls on outings — with the aid of our puppy stroller.

Happily, puppies who play hard together ultimately crash together. 

Because Lisa had a social commitment that would take her out of the house for several hours Saturday and Sunday, I turned to two other devoted CCI puppy-sitters, Susan Miller and Frank Novick of Rancho Bernardo. Susan and Frank have helped us with several previous pups, and they are unfazed even by little ones. They picked up Beverly from Lisa on Friday afternoon, texting me, “We have the package. She is certainly a beauty.” In succeeding texts, they let me know that things were going well. Beverly slept Saturday morning until 6:30 a.m. — a new record for her.

The social whirl doubtless helped to tire her out.

We collected her from Susan and Frank Sunday afternoon. But more fun arrived Monday morning, in the form of a visit from Cyndy Carlton and her current trainee, Target (aka Tar-zhay). Targe is the 11th puppy Cyndy has raised, and Beverly finds him entrancing. (In the puppy-raising world, Cyndy is sort of Beverly’s surrogate grandmother — having raised her real grandmother, Emerald.)

He’s my buddy!

Target only stayed for about an hour. But more fun will be coming to our doorstep tomorrow, when Steve and I will host one of our former trainees, Darby, for a week-long stay while her family vacations in Hawaii. In preparation for that, Beverly is resting up.