Denim: The First Weekend

The drive to Midland was nasty, again. Last year, when we went to get Cobalt, it was white-outs and blowing snow. This time, more white-outs, more blowing snow -- though not quite as bad. We made good time with little fuss.

And when we got there, we saw this:

Our new pup, Denim, all ready to go. We arrived just as one set of adopters was leaving and another was arriving with us, so it was pretty busy at Stoverly Aussies, but Sue Stoverly was on top of things, and we were all sorted out in short order. Cobalt was a little overwhelmed -- Tango, Denim's mother, was feeling playful in spite of a serious injury she sustained a couple of weeks back (she jumped a fence with something sharp sticking out the top, and tore her belly from chest to crotch; she's pretty much recovered now, but she lost a nipple and had to be spayed).

We headed out with Denim after about 40 minutes at Stoverly. We'd brought a cat carrier to hold Denim in the back seat, while Cobalt sat next to her and sniffed. Denim whined and fussed almost to Hwy 400, and was perfect after that, quiet and calm.

Then it was time to introduce her to her new home. First, Grendel:

Stoverly has a cat, but not like this one!


"Oh, you're another one of those bouncy things."

Then, dinner.

Then, a play session with Cobalt. After Denim's done gone out and is safe, we let her loose in the living room, so that she and Cobalt can get to know each other. At first, Cobalt wasn't sure what to do. She brought out her very favourite toy, the purple sheep, to show Denim, but didn't do anything else with it -- at that point. Later, though, there was a major development with the sheep -- that's for the next post.

Denim started investigating the toys we put down for her. Some were a little big for her, but that didn't slow her down much.

It turns out that she loves laps. If you sit on the floor, she will make a running leap into your lap, with a good chance of missing. She's banged into my chin on several occasions. She's also a slurper, and will bite at my beard in her enthusiasm for licking.

Squirmy thing, isn't she?

For most of this, Cobalt was just running around playing with a hard yellow-and-blue ball that she enjoys chasing, but Denim would get in on the fun from time to time. Eventually, Cobalt started getting seriously interested in Denim, and began to tease her with the ball, to get Denim to chase.

Sisters


Come get it!


Keep up, little girl!


Gimme!




I'll Gitcha!

Denim, of course, has the puppy dog looks down pat.

All this playing is exhausting!


Nibbles

At first, we thought Denim had two brown eyes, like Cobalt's, but if you look closely, you can see that there's a splash of blue in the bottom of her right eye. In some other shots, it looks like there might be some blue spots in the left as well.

We have a pen for Denim in our office, so we can watch her while she plays, as well as a crate in the bedroom for night-time and when we're away. Cobalt has now taken to stretching out beside Denim's pen and sleeping beside the crate. She obviously is very taken with her new sister.

Last night, she produced a new twist on the ball-tag game -- using her favourite sheep! We didn't get photos of that, but we have some from this morning which I'll post later.

The end of a busy weekend