Clearly, my December posts are just going to be selfies and dogs. Well, to be fair, I did finish a knitted item last evening but it is soaking and needs a true blocking. The kind where I have to pull out blocking boards and pins and so on. That takes ENERGY, energy which I do not currently have.

Day 4 of my NYX advent calendar is another highlighter. This one is called Cinnamon Spice. It’s on a beige base with a bit of gold shimmer, and I think there’s a bit of a green lean too. I went ham with it in order to be able to see it. Quite frankly, I woke up at 4:30 am, so I had plenty of time to enjoy some makeup play time. It probably shows. In any case, I wanted to also indicate my lip color. It is flower beauty petal pout in warm sand and it is my absolute favorite lipstick ever so far. Oh, and the eye look is the one from the tarte be a mermaid palette that I’ve been panning. The one specific look that I’ve been wearing repeatedly.

Next news, the dogs. Yesterday was an odd day. I had to leave the house at 6:30 am as I had an early morning doctor’s appointment before work. So, the dogs did not get their breakfast and morning care routine from me. Instead, Mr. Ink had to take over. Then Mr. Ink decided to drive Miss Butterfly to school since we had gotten like 9 inches of snow and it’s hard to walk in that. So, they got geared up to leave together and the dogs thought this meant it was time to go for a walk. They got super excited, they got taken out for the last time, and then put in their kennels. They were displeased.

Apparently, SO displeased that Rose destroyed her kennel pad. This kennel pad came highly recommended from her foster family as a pad that would withstand her….as Mr. Ink calls it…Miss Buzz Saw ways.

That’s what he came home to. The pad had a guarantee, but that guarantee was for the first 30 days. She did this in the first 60 days. I am going to contact the pad maker anyhow, as foster family has mentioned that he’s a really nice guy. Because I haven’t seen any other option out there that might work well for us.

As the other side of this, I took a photo of what the floor near our sliding glass door looks like.

What is the point of this you might ask? This is a whole bunch of shoes and boots that haven’t been picked up because Rose has not chewed or even showed any interest in shoes in ages. They are all safe now. So, despite the kennel pad incident, we are still seeing major progress with her, and she’s not even a year old yet.

The dogs clearly were just feeling off their routine all evening. Miss Butterfly had a friend over, a friend the dogs know, and when she walked in the door, Rose took to barking at her like a crazy dog. It was so weird because Rose rarely barks at all. She acted scared of the friend, but then would also wag her tail and go right up to her. All the incessant barking made Lizzie a little nutty so Lizzie would keep trying to tone Rose down. By barking at her. And then correcting her. Which REALLY wasn’t helping.

Once we settled all that down, I noticed that Lizzie, a bit too big for her britches, kept stealing Rose’s antler. In fact, she was stealing it right out of Rose’s mouth. And, well, no matter what I said, Lizzie wouldn’t knock it off. I could see Rose get increasingly grumpy, but after a while, I decided to just let this play out. I told my family repeatedly “By the end of this night, Lizzie is going to get a major smackdown from Rose.”

Throughout the evening I’d notice Rose snarling behind Lizzie’s back, but not reacting to Lizzie directly. I watched and watched and waited. And sure enough, right before bed, in front of the entire family, Rose gave Lizzie a smackdown. She was immediately sorry, and Lizzie was quite chastised. It is absolutely what needed to happen. I decided at that point that everyone, including me, needed to go to bed. Lizzie quite uncharacteristically took Rose’s spot on the bed, looking for comfort from me as Rose had made her nervous. We’ve seen the smackdown before, and we know it needs to happen because Lizzie will absolutely take advantage if given an inch. But she definitely gets upset when it happens.

You know, some days you just feel off, even if you are a dog. Some days you cannot be your patient self. Somedays you decide you aren’t going to tolerate certain behaviors anymore. And Rose had that day yesterday. (Rightfully so!) And that’s the update in the life of Lizzie and Rose, I leave you with one last picture of Lizzie and Miss Butterfly.

They really are the best of pals.