Clearly, I Wasn't Listened To

Making that deal with the Weather Overlord about swapping atmospheric conditions with Orange for a couple of days...

Yeah, well, we got the shit weather last night and today, and Orange enjoyed twenty four k/hr winds, a top of nine degrees, and cloud cover.

According to the weather forcast, Tuesday is literally the only day in the next week where it's meant to be "sunny"- but with a top of four degrees, I don't even know if that's enough.

I'm just kind of frustrated about it all. It's no one's fault, the weather's just being a total fuckwit, but I still can't help wanting to strangle something.

Made up a couple of ad flyers today, and posted ads on Gumtree, Petlink and Petpages, so it's just a matter of waiting and keeping my fingers crossed that new homes for the birdies are out there somewhere. I was a bit... not nervous, just concerned- actually, no, not even that. I was having reservations about telling dad, and was actually expecting a bit of a lecture. But he just sort of said, "What, all of them?" and when I nodded he sighed and told me I was a strange girl.

Which I don't dispute.

Now I've definitely decided, I just want them gone, though. Like a bandaid.

The only thing is I'll still be left with the three babies out with Helios and Tequila to handraise even if I manage to sell the others before they come into the house, so it's going to be a rather drawn out process.

By the end of the year, I'm sure I'll mostly have a grasp on where I'm going and what I'm doing. I kind of need to, because I finish school mid-November and then it all starts to get really complicated anyway.

I got a cheque in the mail today from my grandparents for the money from the bank account, so I'm actually all set for payment for the puppy anyway without having to borrow off my parents again. I'm so glad, since I just finished off the $1800 debt I got through having Fletcher; I don't like owing people things, relying on people for things. I'm sure that probably has an underlying, deeper and more concerning meaning, but whatever.

I just don't.

So I'll cash that on Monday, and for the first time since the end of last year, my bank account is actually going to look semi-decent. For a short time, anyway.

Just to add onto what has got to be the most rambling, disjointed post I have ever made, I've been doing a fair bit of trudging through information regarding studies on desexing and the "right age" to have it done and whatnot, and have come to the decision that the new puppy will be staying entire until somewhere between fourteen and eighteen months of age. This'll be the first time I'll have an entire dog- Charlie was snipped at eight weeks, before I brought him home, and even though Fletch was done at six months old, he was still a puppy so he doesn't really count.

Another reason I want a boy now. First, because I've only got a boy name picked out. And second, because I don't think my parents would appreciate a bitch having a season or two in the house before she was desexed.

My reservation at keeping a dog entire until later on was mainly to do with myself: the experience I've had with entire males hasn't been that pleasant. Every single one I'd come across would be just itching for a fight, starting trouble, constantly distracted, cocking their leg on everything and everyone. But a lady's started coming to agility with her two poodles and I was surprised to learn they were both entire (the standard's six, the miniature's ten) becsause they're just not at all what I've come to associate entire male dogs as. So that made me think maybe I was just having bad experiences, and even if the poodles are abnormally well mannered, if normal is somewhere in between I shouldn't have too many issues.

My second reservation was to do with the fact that no doubt there are at the very least a handful of irresponsibly owned entire bitches around here, and our fence isn't that fantastic: it's four foot, but the gate is two foot and kelpies are kind of... springy. But that's also irrelevant now since I don't plan on leaving any dog I own outside unsupervised anyway. Charlie jumps the gate if I'm not home, so he stays inside and the new dog will as well, so that solves any potential roaming.

I don't want an entire dog for twelve/fourteen/sixteen/whatever years. I still see desexing as something important, and something I want my dogs to have, but given this opportunity I'm going to elect to wait a while longer than I would have normally thought to, and see how it turns out.