Maggie see's grass...

Hello Maggie

Yesterday Rob and I set our alarm clocks to have time in the morning to have breakfast, catch up on the news (unfortunately Boston was the main story and we feel very sad about the bomb and people deceased or injured) and hit the gym for an exercise class.  We specifically choose South Pacific Heath Club because we saw a class called, Body Pump.  The description mirrored a gym class in the states called, Group Power.  We've been attending group power in Fort Collins for the last few months.  For those of you who don't know, this is an aerobic weight lifting class set to music that works all major muscle groups.  The hour goes by before you know it, you get a full body workout and most of the time, we are sore the next day.  Sure enough, the body pump was exactly group power and I felt as though I was home again.  I couldn't help but smile for the first 15 minutes as life felt familiar.  After our sweat session, we walked around St. Kilda and eventually got home, ate lunch, showered up and set out to visit Maggie.  Note: for those who are not dog or Maggie lovers, the next part of this blog will not really interest you.  Maggie is part of our family pack so I will write a lot about her at least while she is having experiences separate from us.

Happy Dog

We arrived to Spotswood (the quarantine center) right at the start of visiting hours with treats and toys in hand.  Maggie, of course, went ballistic when she saw us and bolted out the gate of her pin into Rob's arms.  We had to leash her and walked her out to a grassy area that is sectioned off by wire (of course) to "runs" for the dogs.  We stayed the full two hours of visiting time in the grassy run.  Thankfully, the place wasn't overly crowded with visitors so we didn't have to share our grassy run.  This is the first time in five days since she has left her pin or seen grass.

Maggie this is grass

Overall, she seems better than the first day she arrived.  She looked and acted more like herself with a few exceptions.  She doesn't seem to able to relax, she wants to stand or sniff around rather than be petted.  She drank a ton of water with us present.  This is very unusual for Maggie because we normally have to encourage her to take a drink during play or hikes or long walks.  She ate a lot of grass as well.  She also "toileted" often in the grass while we were there.  We brought and threw the ball with Maggie repeatably but she tired out very quickly.  Almost like she is de-conditioned.  It wasn't very warm outside, a lovely day really, but she panted heavily and even though she wanted to continue fetching, we gave her a break.  She did take all the treats we gave her and when we left, closing the pin door, she didn't try to bolt out and leave with us.  I do believe she howled after she lost sight of us.  It's heartbreaking.  We plan to return on Thursday and hope she is not drinking so much water and is closer to baseline but Rob and I know she wont be the same until she is free and with us.

Eating grass

Maggie dropped her ball right in front of the dog next to our run and the dog snatched it to play for some time.  How sweet is that?!

Tired girl

This picture is a little blurry but we are back in her pin with her new beds

This trip has been really awesome thus far and we still feel blessed to be here at this point in our lives but leaving Maggie in Spotswood is horrible.  Rob and I agreed we will never do this process again- move and quarantine an animal.  It just doesn't seem fair.  We were sad and quiet for some time after the visit.  Eventually we met up with our friend, Alicia and enjoyed chatting with her over dinner.  Another homey feeling for the both of us to have dinner with a friend.  Thanks, Alicia!

Quick thanks to Mike and Jen who gave us this picture of the world with the words, "Home is where I'm with you".  We have it displayed next to our digital photo frame, thanks to Mike and Jess too... it makes us feel at home!