So it's late September at nearly 8pm and the wind is mild; my dog is outside fossicking around. Yesterday she caught a big black spider and every time I went near her to kill it (it looked seriously menacing) she gleefully ran off with it in her mouth whilst waggling her bushy tail. Then she proceeded to bat at the poor beast with her paws till it curled up its legs in self-defence. THEN to my horror she picked it up in her mouth and ATE it. Fearless Flossie, I call her (Flossie being her name). The other night we had a thunderstorm; she barked angrily at the rumbling; sticking her furry head out beyond the curtains to blink at the lightning. Again, fearless.
I think it's the terrier in her; she's a cross between a shih tsu, a terrier and a pekinese, which basically means she's fluffy and cute. It also means that, as a stray whom I adopted from a shelter she's been allowed to get away with murder by her previous owners, and she has a fair few challenging behavious which I'm trying to train her out of, like whining for food when I eat my meals, biting at my feet when I walk if she gets excitable, ripping furniture when bored, barking incessantly at people who walk past our front window...the list goes on. And she isn't toilet trained. She's challenging but worth it. I now have a furry friend who greets me enthusiastically when I come home. She curls up with me on my bed at night and we snore in unison. When I rub her belly she sighs and licks my hand. My companion, my Floss poss (short for possum, an Australian native animal she barks at if they jump on the roof at night).
I haven't been walking her as much as I should (ie: every day). Lately I've taken on a second job delivering catalogues to letterboxes; I do it twice a week and the delivery takes me over 2 1/2 hours to do, which feels great but is tiring. Not so good is the time it takes to collate the various catalogues into one parcel (Ie: fold 8 or 9 catalogues into one bundle per letterbox); usually around 3-4 hours to do this. For all this work I get around $30; I'm paid per 1000 catalogues I deliver. It's a massive rip-off, but I'm mainly doing it for the exercise. Whether I can maintain doing it long term is another question, but with the weather warming up I feel inclined to continue. Am still giving the talks about mental illness to schoolkids, but that will wind down as they approach their final exams in October/November. I might have to look for better paying work, but so far I'm managing. I'm learning to shop at discount sores and to budget better. So for all that it's piss-poor paid, the walking I'm doing delivering catalogues is suiting me at the moment. It's great for depression: non-existant at present. So, yeah, happy at the mo :)
