Lucy the dog

I rarely post about our dogs, so maybe it's time they got their own posts. Lucy has had quite a week, so let's start with her.

We got Lucy at the Humane Society a year after we got married. She's a lab mixed with what we think is German Shepherd. Despite her coloring, her coat isn't the glossy coat of a lab, and her fur is a lot coarser. She has a habit of pooping on the living room floor when the baby cries too much at night. It was a pretty frequent occurrence when Margaret was a baby, but Henry is so mellow (or Lucy is getting used to babies) that we've only had 2 poop instances since H was born.

Last week I discovered that Lucy has some sort of love of poopy diapers. We had been just throwing Henry's diapers into the trash can in our room, since the breastfed baby diapers don't stink too much. However, I guess the introduction of some solid food made some mighty yummy poop, since Lucy decided to fish it out of the trash and chew it into pieces all over our bedroom floor. Yeah, that was nice.

Lucy did have a moment of brilliance recently when she opted to trick OD out of his bed. Henry's crib in our room has encroached on Lucy's bed, so I guess she decided she needed his space. As we were getting ready for bed, she barked and then came to the foot of our bed and scratched (her signal for either "I need to go out" or "I need attention"). Wes leaned over and scratched Lucy. OD took notice of this and got out of his bed, and came to the foot of our bed to get Wes' attention. Lucy immediately walked over to OD's bed and laid down. OD looked pretty perplexed when it was time for him to go back to bed. If I hadn't seen Lucy do a bunch of dumb stuff, I'd think this sort of manipulative action was indicative of her brilliance, but I once saw her "bury" a treat in the middle of the living room, in plain sight of, well, everyone. Needless to say, OD found her treat and ate it. And yesterday when I went out of the room to change Henry's diaper, leaving my plate on the counter, I returned to find her eating my chicken. So she has her moments.

Lucy is awesome though. She has little tolerance for children poking at her, but she knows when she's had enough and walks away rather than snapping at them. She helpfully cleans the floor of any and all food, and comes when she's called. She is very sweet, and will sit on your lap if you don't mind 85 pounds of dog on you. She sheds like crazy, but she also keeps herself as clean as a cat, so she doesn't stink like our other dog. She gives very gentle kisses on the cheek to both kids, and can kill rodents with the best of them. She loves laser lights and will chase them like they are prey, and she loves to go on walks, even though we don't take her on as many as we should. She drinks out of the toilet even when she has fresh water in her dish. But she is as sweet as can be.