Cassie the Therapy Dog

Lately I'm kind of a spaz. I hear about something cool going on and I want to be a part of it. I'm learning I probably shouldn't talk about these things publicly until I ACTUALLY do them, otherwise it's just talk. Sometimes though I just get too excited and go ahead and blab about it anyway...

Therapy dogs -- I haven't taken any steps in this area recently but would love to make visiting different places with therapy dogs a part of my normal week. Actually, Kaeda passed the Canine Good Citizenship test awhile ago. Chaz not so much... What happened to Chaz anyway? That's a story for another day... Anyway, Craiger (my dad -Yes I call my parents by their first names. Have since I could talk. I know, it's weird. And no, it's not out of disrespect. And no, I don't usually call him Craiger - I usually stick with Craig). Anyway, Craiger, errr Craig hooked me up with the right contacts in the case that I do pursue the therapy dog thing officially. Maybe blogging about it will hold me to it. Feel free to ask how it's coming... :)

In the meantime, we have our unofficial therapy dog, Cassie, over at Jane and Jerry's house.(Ash, hope you don't mind -- I snatched this pic from your blog)

The story behind the picture Ashley took? Well, Joella was having one of her bobcat scream-fests, probably category 7 on a scale of 1-10. The scale used to be 1-5 but she outdid herself at about 6 weeks old so we had to move it on up to 10. Anyway, she was mad that she couldn't go hang out with Papa. Nothing would calm her down so finally I used the last thing left in my mama toolbox. The dog. Joella LOVES dogs. I put her on top of Cassie (kind of like you see in the top picture above) and she was instantly quiet. THANK YOU, CASSIE! What a relief. Not only that, but Cassie even slightly nudged Joella's shoulder and got a big grin out of her.

This got me thinking... Maybe I need a therapy dog in my own life more than I realized. Good thing we have Kaeda! Sometimes it's the only thing that will snap our stubborn little munchkin out of whatever it is she's so determined to get. I've often found myself telling her "Kaeda needs a hug" and sure enough, she'll settle down and give the dog a hug. I think I'll have to get creative soon because I'm not sure how long that's going to work!