My people-parents took me with them to visit my "Ranny" and Grandpa for people-mom's birthday over the weekend. I had a good time buddying around their backyard with my brother, Jax. Grandpa's been working with him alot more and he's really shaped up as far as behaving better and obeying. Mom was impressed. Jax tends to demand and insist upon alot of attention and he's improved quite a bit...although his improvement resulted in an even greater fuss being made over him...
Mollie was there, too, but she's changing. I can tell my people-mom is upset about it. Mollie turned 10 years old sometime between now and Christmas. They aren't sure of the exact date she was born, but they got her in May when she was about 4 months old, so that will be 10 years ago this coming May...and suddenly, she's old and particular and crotchety. Mom doesn't think she was as happy to see us as she was when we visited over Christmas. She did alot of unusual behavior-type things like yelping when mom wanted to brush her (although we determined it was a new brush and Mom realized she'd never tried brushing Mollie's tummy before and thus, hadn't considered the fact that Mollie might not like it). Mostly, she's sad to see her dog turning into an old, cranky dog. She's not young and fun, anymore.
It makes Mom appreciate me more. But I don't like her to be sad. She's also sad because her niece didn't seem all that interested in her. I admit, mom was pretty busy making time for friends, catching up with her sisters and monitoring the dogs, and that she didn't have alot of time to just sit down and play toys with the baby like everyone else did, but...her feelings are hurt anyway. That's how kids are, we know, but...I guess she was counting on more.
She did enjoy seeing her friends, but it made her feel more lonely when it was time to make the long drive back home. Now that we're here, Mom seems depressed and doesn't feel like doing anything. She feels very alone.
And Dad still won't let us have another dog. How are we supposed to immerse ourselves in dogs and forget about the friends we don't have, the frustration of being far away from the good friends we do have, or ignore the relatives that let us down (I'm sensing there was some kind of dissappointing episode regarding an auntie but I don't understand what went on...) or the dogs who don't enjoy our company anymore -if there's only us?
The car ride back was madness. We had to take all of the damn cats with us because Mom decided we might as well all get our yearly vet visits overwith since they were going to be making the trip anyway. The damn cats yelled all the way back, and pooped in their crates and we had to stop and clean that up so the rest of us could ride without smelling it. And they got bored and reached out of their crates and tore up a bunch of stuff. Mom was driving in lots of bad weather and traffic (she feels the need to bribe and appease dad by offering to drive so he doesn't have to. Like that makes him feel better about accompanying us, somehow...) and several threats were made about leaving the cats on the side of the road (well, that's the nice version of what was intoned).
We made it. Now, how to cheer mom back up...
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