Hattie at home; Spanish town parade (Escape from Grey Gardens)

Hattie is living inside. We've made her a safe haven in the pass-through bathroom with a baby gate for the door to our bedroom so she can see and hear us, and us her. So far she's only roamed around the bedroom a bit with the doors shut so the boys can't get in. On the other side of the pass-through last night I rigged up her crate poking into the TV room so she can join us, sort of, in there. When we take her out we carry her to the door so the boys don't get to her.

Beckett and Scout are not too happy about their new sister. They are curious, but wary, and both have growled at her. We need to let them co-exist separated for a time, see that attention to them isn't diminished by her being here, and we will do the first face-to-face meetings outside on neutral ground, carefully monitored. There must be all kinds of stuff going on in the canine frequencies--we'll just read it as well as we can and take the socialization one day at a time. Patience has always paid off with these dogs, and Hattie is responding to it wonderfully well. The boys are sweet fellas and I know they will accept her eventually.

She's gone from a terrified little yelper under the house who wouldn't let me get near her to an affectionate puppy in less than 2 weeks. Her first bath made her soft and sweet-smelling, and now she wriggles around and comes to greet us, falls asleep with her head in my lap, and generally behaves more and more like a secure puppy every day. I got a 20-foot training lead and have already started some low-key obedience. When she's more adjusted to her surroundings I'll take her to classes. She has yet to have an accident in the house and seems to understand what to do when I take her out. She's starting to respond to her name.

She was so sweet at the vet's, probably too scared to do much but put up with it. We got her shots, blood test, feeding instructions, appointment for spaying in 3 months, etc. She's got a few small problems that come with being a stray, but nothing major: a mild ear infection, coat showing the effects of poor nutrition, needing to be wormed, and of course fleas, but those weren't too bad since we had a couple of freezes recently. Thank goodness she is too young for heartworm, but we got her started on prevention for that right away. The vet gave her this amazing pill that makes the fleas literally stagger off the animal and plop over dead. It works for 48 hours, by which time we had bathed her and applied Advantage. The vet said she was pretty certain her coat would improve with proper nutrition. It already looks a heck of a lot better after her bath.

The best thing is seeing her be curious and puppyish. Yesterday she lay down on the little knoll the house sits on and went to roll over on her back to, then surprised herself by rolling over completely since she was going downhill. She will fetch a stick but gets distracted, as a puppy should. We are exploring the yard and each other. She responds to my voice positively, no sign of that cringing from before, but we still need to move slowly around her.

The vet said from her teeth she was probably 13 weeks, and she weighs 26 pounds. My guess is she'll be a pretty big girl. I adore her.

Saturday was the Spanish Town parade. Gary stayed home with a hurt knee and Hattie, and I rode our float with my friend Ruth. We were vikings. Ruth made this amazing hat with beads, flamingoes, and feathers glued all over it. We decided that as we did not look threatening that we were pacifist vikings. We threw a ton of stuff at people and distributed more at the party that has become a department tradition.

Although I had a great time, there were a few twinges of missing people who've moved on. Thank goodness fresh supplies of wonderful people seem to keep arriving. A few reunions: our friend blogger Josh came for the party from Austin and stayed a few nights at GGLA. He's smart and funny and sweet and eccentric and it was great to see him.

Here's a sense of what Spanish Town is like: motley, campy, political, homemade, funky, fun.