Cats and Dogs

After spending her first few days in Princess’ room, Tonks decided it was OK to venture out into the living room - being carried of course Duma was happy as a clam to have Tonks out of Princess’ room . . . she’d spent the first 3 days sniffing Princess’ door wondering what the heck was in there! Tonks hung out on Princess’ lap while Duma cautiously walked up to see what she was:

Tonks was used to little dogs at her previous home, but not big dogs. In fact, the paperwork may have even said she wasn’t real crazy about big dogs But she sat there nicely, watching the freaky 75 lb. lab puppy make some moves to see what “it” would do.

Tonks finally had enough and let Duma know who was in charge!

Hissing is not allowed, and we let Tonks know that. She’s been really good with Duma since then. She still listens for Duma’s collar and watches for her. And for the first week at our house, she wouldn’t even come out of Princess’ room. We started leaving the door open so Duma could go in there and check her out. At first, Tonks hid under the slide.

But there was no hissing, which was awesome! Then she decided to hang out on Princess’ bed and check out Duma from above . . . I was kind of hoping for an ambush, but that didn’t happen.

She finally got bored with the reindeer games and decided to eat dinner. Surprisingly, Duma just sat there and watched her!

It’s now been 10 days since Tonks joined our family. I won’t say that she and Duma are friends, but they’re certainly learning to live with each other. Tonks ventures out of Princess’ room whenever she wants, whether or not Duma is out there. I think Tonks has even figured out that if she runs, Duma will chase her - she is a retriever after all! So Tonks just sits and and jumps from furniture to furniture. She especially likes to sit on the laps of any of us because she knows Duma is not allowed on the furniture - which is really pissing Duma off!

Princess is happy as a clam that Tonks LOVES to sleep in bed with her and that her room is Tonks’ room, too. She tells everyone that Tonks is so soft and cuddly and is just awesome. Yup - Princess did a great job picking out the perfect cat for our family. I never thought I’d see Hubby go in Princess’ room to get Tonks and have her sit on his lap while he watched the Vikings game! So much for “I don’t like cats!”