May 14,2016

Greetings My Friend, Right now we are working with a new to us dog. He is around 2 years old and we felt we needed to open our home to another rescue dog. At first I was heart broken that we were tying him up on the porch but now I get it. When he sees the other dogs enter the area he rushes at them. We are spending time on the porch with him so when he rushes the dogs we correct Harley. We start by stepping on the rope to shorten the lead and begin telling him no in a firm voice. Next we love on him. He is getting treats when we go out, when he does good and he is responding. When we are in the house he can sit right by the door so we talk to him as we pass by. I want to let him in so bad and I know if we do it too soon he will be harder to train. Once we bring him in we have a crate ready to use when we are not at home and at night. We are missing Chiari who got hit by a car and we are going to use a shock collar on Brendy to keep her in the yard. I wondered about our family we are growing until driving around I see some people in our area have goats, sheep and cows so us having several dogs seems a lot like raising other types of animals. The dogs we take in are unwanted although many were born into our home their parents were a rescue. For some reason we find an understanding for them. They fill our day with love, attention and need. We are also working hard at keeping the house allergy clean as we can such as air purifers, keeping the floors cleaned and we are starting to buy leather furniture. It is helping me. Each day I am spending time boxing up tools and odds and ends that Junior has left laying around. He will sort through the box and put the things away or get rid of them. For me I have the porch space I need to get around with the walker available. The top to the lattice has a flat piece where our plants in pots are lined up and above that various bird feeders, houses and wind chimes filling the space. It is peaceful to sit on the porch and even look from my chair in the house. I remember asking God over and over "when?" I was afraid I would be too old and worn out to enjoy this beauty not only the countryside but the house, the porch and the yard. With the kitchen nearly finished but so much more livable and usable and the porch opened up I feel like I have begun to live the dream. Right now I am not organizing the kitchen like I want to that can wait until bad weather or this fall. I am cooking more and my focus is outside on the porch cleaning and fussing with that. With the wardrobe finished now and in place in the TV room I feel like I can accomplish anything. I have worked with my new limitations and now I can enter into most of the jobs without a lot of thought to it. The house and now the porch are set up for my disability and it is smooth sailing. Father God has given me an awesome gift, peace. He knows that Junior and I are easily anxious about things so He gave us this house and porch. We did not get it without some hard work which we still have some do like the master bedroom and suite and a porch off of the kitchen. Later Junior will fine tune the house such as new ceilings in each of the rooms and redo the current bathroom. He likes being busy and the long term business is good for him. For now though we are able to be comfortable and I love it. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet