Happy Finna Report

Life with Finna is a wild roller coaster ride that's for sure. And after a steep dive that leaves me thinking we've bitten off way more than we can chew and even that maybe Finna would be better off if we had her put down there's the sudden ascent and I see the awesome dog she should be. We've climbed another hill and I'm looking around in wonder at how it should be.

Two happy progress reports this time. A little background on the first one. At our house the standard joke for animals who do something that they shouldn't have is that it was done by the evil twin. The Great Catsby, for example, knows that he should not be on the kitchen counters. The cat we find trolling the counter is The Great Catsby's evil twin. Until very recently Finna didn't have an evil twin, she didn't have good behavior with which to compare the actions of an evil twin. It was a great moment when I heard my husband in the kitchen saying, "I don't want the evil twin, I want the good quiet Finna. If you go and get her I'll give her treats." That's when I realized that we're now living with Finna and her evil twin. Finna is now behaving well enough in general that we're ascribing her bad behavior to her evil twin. That's a huge improvement. Finna lets Dad move around the house but her evil twin still chases him up the stairs at bedtime.

The second happy progress report is that Finna now smiles a genuinely happy and contented smile. I've been seeing excited smiles ("yes, yes, please, throw the ball") for awhile but now we're seeing relaxed contented, genuinely happy smiles on occasion. When she walks over, sits in front of me, looks me in the face and smiles with soft eyes it makes it all worthwhile. I wish I could capture a photograph of her smile. She's the sweetest, happiest, most content looking dog when she smiles like that.

Not that life with Finna is all sweetness and light. No doubt there's another steep dive coming on the Finna roller coaster but right now we're in a good place and for right now that's enough.