Return of Prada

Ok, I’ve got a lot to write about…

First off, Prada and I are back in Alabama for the spring semester at UAH. The flight went very well and uneventfully, and I’m sure we met every dog lover in Portland, Denver, and Huntsville airports.
Second: SNOW! There were little patches of snow all over UAH’s campus on Sunday when we were walking around getting some exercise and timing routes to and from classes and the fitness center. We found one in our path past the library and Prada stopped to snuffle around in it. I corrected her, we reworked the snowpatch, then when we’d gotten through it successfully I praised her, took the harness off, and let her go back and play in it. She is sooooo cute! We spent a good five minutes snuffling around, biting, and pawing at the snow (yeah, I played to. I got snow all over her  ).

Thirdly: I am part of the leadership group of one of the on-campus ministries called Reformed University Fellowship (RUF). Sunday evening we went to the campus minister’s house and had our first-of-the-semester meeting. Brad, the minister, has a dog named Gunner, a happy, loveable black retriever of some kind (I’m thinking Gordon or English lab?). During the meeting Brad put Gunner in the laundry room so he and Prada wouldn’t interact ‘cause they’ve never met before and we kind of forgot about that little issue. Brad was so gracious to just put Gunner away for a bit and let Prada shed all over the carpet, though. After the meeting was over some of the other RUF kids showed up to hang out and consume copious amounts of junk food with us, as is the Sunday night ritual. During that time Gunner had to be taken (on leash) out to the back yard to park. Gunner, meet Prada. Prada, Gunner. They got to sniff each other and sort of get to know one another for about 30 seconds but we decided that since there were so many people that formal introductions would have to happen later. Brad and I are both confident that they’ll end up getting along very well, though, and I can’t wait to see them running around in their backyard together after some ball or other.

Classes have gone well so far. Prada’s still a little off her schedule and unused to this much focused activity throughout the day thanks to the erraticness of our break schedule but she’s settling in well, sleeps heavily at night, and is as perky and playful as ever during the day. So far still no access issues whatsoever and she’s been a great help in my speech class: gets peoples’ attention. I’m taking advanced karate this year after a semester break from that course so it’ll be interesting to see how she reacts to that. I told the instructor I might have to deal with her a couple of times during the first few classes but I’m going to try to just ignore her as much as I can during class so she gets the idea that everything’s ok. She’s usually pretty chill about some of the other, more physical activities I get in to so I don’t think she’ll have an issue with karate.