In the middle of chaos,

little Flashlight rests

She cracks me up - most of her days are spent hiding in the dark at the top of the basement stairs, hoping that the banging and yelling outside will end. The sun was so strong yesterday that she decided that my office was safe enough to curl up into my mail basket, on top of my purse and nap. She's so funny.

I've been trying to snap some shots of the dogs lately - usually, they're the 2 headed dog, wrestling and tussling when they're not sleeping or eating. Jack's been a little wigged out with all of the noise so in the evenings, he sticks close to me, looking for comfort. I've been trying to wean him off of the need to be comforted when he's scared and we've made big strides in the past few weeks. We still have along way to go, though. I managed to snatch a few photos when he was climbing under my work station. It's hard to believe that just last year, he was a young dog; now, he's a white bearded old dude. In his mind, yelling is followed by a beating and despite the fact that he's never had us do that to him, the memories of his first year still haunt him. He likes to take preemptive strikes and pretends to be vicious, barking and hackles raised when the yelling outside starts. The big command that we've been working on is "no noise" with a finger touching our lips. I learned with Ilka to use both words and hand gestures so that even at a distance, as long as she could see me, she would understand what I wanted. Jack is so bright that he understands most of what I ask of him and the "nn" command seems to make sense to him. He needs to understand that there's no threat and that I'll defend him if a threat would be made. His poor little brain cannot process that news, though. He is such a sweet-natured dog usually...except when he's afraid. I cannot imagine how awful he must feel when the panic hits. And to think that another human did this to him. How powerful that person was (hrmph!) to beat a silly little puppy and break his spirit. It used to anger me to think of it but now, it saddens me.
I wrote my Member of Parliament, asking him to support a Private Member's bill to up the penalty for animal cruelty. No response from his office - guess you don't want my vote, do you Mr O'Connor? When we do not protect the weakest members of our society - children, the elderly,the disenfranchised and animals - we are not a fully evolved society. Why should I be surprised that he couldn't have a staffer reply - he was too busy sending our men and women off to die. If he doesn't respect other humans, why should I expect him to respect the rights of animals?