Moving On

Today Michelle came and picked Ziva up. She is moving on! It seems that over the last week or so EVERYONE has been asking, "How will you be able to give her up? Won't you be sad?" Ziva is a wonderful, smart and sweet girl, and, of course, we will miss having her around. But, it is exciting to imagine who she will be matched with and what she will be doing in the coming years. Ziva did well in her recent evaluation, so we are optimistic that she will succeed in her planned career. I guess it is kind of like sending a child off to college and knowing (or at least being pretty confident) she will get a terrific job she will love.

In the past few months, Ziva's work has become much more consistent. She's even started to get the hang of stopping for overhead obstacles. For a long time I think that she thought I just amused myself by stopping to admire the trees.

Ziva recently enjoyed a rainy afternoon on the porch of the French Legation Museum in Austin. The curator was concerned about letting her into the museum, but she proved to be a model guest.
Ben, Evan and Marten will miss Ziva. They think that she would love to be placed with someone who is around kids a lot.

Marten and Ziva

Evan and Ziva

Ben and Ziva

Be a good girl!

A special thanks to Courtney Havenwood for all the beautiful pictures of Ziva.

2,728 Miles!

The day after Christmas, we loaded Ziva and the boys into the van and headed for Arizona for sunshine and snow. Ziva slept away the drive ( I wish I could have).
Ziva enjoyed long naps in the sun. We visited the Tucson zoo where she was clearly the most interesting thing (live prey!) the Bengal tiger had seen in a very long time! Ziva was too busy enjoying all the exotic zoo scents to notice the tiger, but we quickly moved away, just to be safe.
She found the cool air and snow extremely energizing! We found a few spots where we could let her safely off leash, and she bounded happily through the deep snow, occasionally stopping to gobble a mouthful of powdery snow.

After a day in the snow, we returned to the hotel for a splash in the pool and soak in the hot tub. Ziva found the water most interesting but demonstrated admirable restraint.

Speaking of restraint, we recently attended the Seton Hospital Mock Surgery, an open house and tour of surgical suites, complete with simulated surgeries. The halls were teeming with dog-loving children and crowded with displays of polycystic kidneys and severed toes.......and a real, live therapy cat. My son Evan gravitated to the cat and started chatting with her handler. He mentioned that a dog (Ziva) was soon to come around the corner. Rather than being on alert for any unusual reaction from the cat, the handler scooped her up. As Ziva and I rounded the corner, he thrust the cat mere centimeters from Ziva's shiny black nose and said, "Does she like cats?" Well, Ziva is good but I wouldn't have bet money on her being THAT good. Her nose twitched like crazy and her tail flapped, but she sat and behaved with the utmost professionalism. Whew!