karma

Speaking of dog... we have a new four-legged member of the family who joined us a few weeks ago. We were testing her out for a little while to see how she'd do with our (spoiled only-child) cat. And well, they may not be best friends yet, but they're used to each other now, and we always supervise when they are together in a room. There's always that risk with any combination of animals, you know, and that's a scary thought. So far though, the dog just mostly wants to play with the cat, whereas the cat, naturally, wants to be left alone. Neither of them are particularly dominant or aggressive, so if Karma gets in Ella's face, there's usually a stern meow and maybe a clawless (our cat is not declawed, but she doesn't use her claws to hurt) swat. Otherwise, they just curl up peacefully on opposite sides of the floor or couch. And the cuteness melts my heart.

So yes, the dog's name is Karma (and not Dogma). She's 5 years old, so we figured, better leave the name as is. Besides, she better bring us good karma for the rest of the semester at least. Right? We got her from a local family who was trying to bypass the shelter and find a loving home for her directly. I.e. us (i.e., we fool people into viewing us as responsible adults, though loving, that we are)!

She came with the menacing label of "pitbull mix", and you know that whenever anyone hears that word they think:

Whereas in actuality she's more like:

She's friendly and loyal and peaceful and sweet. She's gentle in the way she interacts and plays. She's delicate in the way she curls up for a nap. In San Francisco, people have renamed pitbulls as Saint Francis terriers, and this new label fits them well. We promptly changed Karma's vet records to say "terrier/hound mix", because the stigma is simply unfair. Just look at this face: