Major knitting going on and pics to come. The women are getting fingerless mittens and the men are getting hats. One more hat to go, two more mitts, then I get to knit for myself! Unless I decide to expand my knitted-gift circle. A strong possibility.

In other news, I thought I'd share my latest exciting moment while walking the dog. OK, so there are rarely an exciting moment, that's what makes this incident so noteworthy.

(apologies to those who have already heard this)

Cosette (greatest dog in the world) loves her morning walks, right? And we walk forever in the mornings, right? Because this dog would walk to Lincoln if I'd let her. Well, every now and then we come across loose dogs who follow us then run away, and I'm always hoping they run home. This morning, a rat terrier mix, a little smaller than Cosette, was loose and came running up to play. I told him to go home and he ran in the opposite description, so we went on our way, me hoping he was going home because I hate the idea of a lost dog and I can't do anything about it. Then here he came, running up to us again--he'd found us. He came over for me to pet him, but he didn't have a tag, but this was obviously a well taken care of dog. He kept following us, but wouldn't let me get near enough to pick him up, so I just kept calling him to follow us. And he did. Followed us all the way home, with little side trips into the street, while I held my breath, hoping he wouldn't get hit by a car.

When we got to our house, I opened the gate for Cosette to run into the backyard, called for the other dog and he ran in, too. He was good dog and obeyed commands as well as he could, being excited to be in a new environment. So, we all went in the house, and I gave Cosette a treat while I put the other dog in the car to take him to a vet to see if he was chipped. And he was! He was also shedding like crazy because he was stressed and excited, but he sat in my lap and calmed down. The Home Again people left a message with the owners, giving them my phone number because I was going to take him back home with me. They told me his name was Emmet, so I said "Hi Emmet," and he tilted his head to right in surprise and I swear he smiled at me.

Cosette wasn't too sure about this. Emmet, as I now knew him to be, ran around with a rawhide in his mouth, looking for a place to bury it, jumping on the couch, into my lap, and all over. He put it down to eat some food I put in a dish for him, and Cosette grabbed the rawhide. They had both started to settle down when Emmet's owner called, and back we got in the car to take him home.

Yay! I love it when everything works out. If Cosette was loose, I hope someone would try to find out who she belonged to and get her home, so I'm glad it worked out for Emmet. I didn't ask any questions, but Emmet's owner has 2 small children at home and I think he was probably distracted and didn't realize Emmet had gotten out, but he was very grateful to get him back and Emmet was very happy to be home.

So, get your pets chipped if you haven't already. It's a wonderful service, which you hopefully will never have to use.

Here's a new favorite pic of Cosette and me. She's such a cuddle puppy.