The Vast Menagerie

First of all, to all you non-heathen/pagans out there, kalo pascha (Happy Easter), and Xristos anesti.

So Maggie Mae and I have officially landed at my friend Rachel's zoo. It's been a long day already. I got up at quarter to dark and drove out here, picked her up, let the guyzos out, and then took her to the airport, at which point I then called her doctor and told him I had left her in the capable custody of the skycap. I then went back home and crashed until 10:30. I did some more laundry, ran and got a few groceries (dry stuff, mostly), got some lunch (Maggie can has cheeseburger), and then we came over. And chaos ensued for a little bit, but, I think everyone (except maybe the cats) is pretty solid on this idea right now. It's going to be an interesting week...

So these are our new friends, Mazel and Jake.


Mazel Boy is so named because Rachel is Jewish and Mazel, of course, means "lucky" in Hebrew.


She scooped him up off the side of the road one night after watching him get hit by a car. She took him to the vet and he's been with her ever since. He's some sort of German Shepherd mix (my guess is Corgi or Beagle) and Rach thinks he's about 10.


He's a funny old boy. Maggie, who is of course six but thinks she's still a full-on puppy, and Jake will get to fussing and playing and wrestling about, and he'll walk over and bark in that scolding the young whippersnappers kind of way, and then he'll huff back to where he was laying. Which is not to say he can't hold his own with the Jakester and be just a rough-and-tumble as the kiddos. He's such a good boy. Big with the "stranger danger", but, is that really such a bad thing? Oy, I just adore that dog.

And then, of course, there's Jake.


This is closer to "Jake (actual size):"


Jake, too, is a rescue (Rachel went in to the shelter for a cat. She came out with two kittens and a puppy who was 10 lbs but "we think he might get big." You can see why we're friends.), but he's a purebred Leonburger. Leos are apparently some German breed that were bred to do things like water rescue and to roughly resemble a lion.


So he's an 8 month old puppy, who acts just like you would expect an 8 month old puppy to act...except he's like 200 lbs (and he's the runt!). Which he doesn't get - he still thinks he's the ten pound little rascal that came home from the shelter, not a beast the approximate size of a Volkswagen bus.

Given that I'm lacking a cork, here's a different size approximation device:

She looks like a toy Poodle next to him.

Here's a little more perspective. First, Miss Maggie's dainty paw in my hand.


Then, Mazel's hefty paw. He's about half Jake's weight or so (and thus, about twice Maggie's).


And finally, Jake's front paw, and my size ten foot.

Generally, Maggie's happy enough to play with him, and he follows her around like a...well....


I think she's finally getting to the point where she needs a break from him, though, since she keeps hiding next to me and growling at him.

On the whole, however, I think everyone's going to have fun this week.


Except possibly the cats...

Yeah, there are four cats. Well, five if you count the one that lives outside. I'll try to get pictures of them tomorrow, but generally they've all retreated. The two siblings, Simon and Garfunkel, are a little older than Jake and are very social and Maggie likes them very much. They're generally okay with her, but they really, really like me (remember my wicked cat allergy?). And they're so cute and well socialized that I almost like them. The other two, though, spend most of their time hiding under beds or staying in the cat room (aka, the office, which is blocked off from doggy access), and are pretty much all maintenance, no return, and so generally serve to remind me why I'm not a cat person in the first place.

Ahhh, we'll see how it goes...