Ned.

Where am I? What's going on? I went from living on my own in a studio apartment in Seattle to a massive house in the Dominican Republic with two other adults, a 3 year old, and now 3, count em, t-h-r-e-e dogs. The thing is, I kinda like this new one.
This is Ned. He was found walking by the side of the road in the Samana Peninsula, covered in fleas and ticks and days, if not hours, away from death. I give full props to Dave and Joan, they were the ones who kicked into action, Joan made sad noises and Dave swung the car around to go get Ned. Me, I'm a horrible realist and could have just driven by without much thought to it. It's a harsh reality but that's the life of most of the dogs in Samana. I tried my best to save a Samana dog last year after getting too attached to her, and we all know how that turned out. I figured that Joan and Dave were just heading down a road that would only lead to a world of hurt. But we scooped Ned up (and I say "we" at this point because, although I was the most reluctant of the crew, I was the one that ended up with the flea-ridden cur in my lap) and took him back to our hotel/apartment and proceeded to painstakingly remove somewhere around 500 fleas from him. No, I'm not overestimating, I couldn't have imagined that sheer number of fleas on such a tiny dog.
About 10 baths and 5 hours later, Ned was clean and mostly flea-free. He ended up coming home to Santo Domigo with us and was given a clean bill of health from the vet. So he's been with us for a week, and each day I'm becoming more and more skeptical that he'll ever not be with us. Since I'm home more of the time and Joan and Dave already have plenty to deal with, I've become Ned's keeper and trainer, and honestly it's filling a much-needed empty spot in my life. One of the main reasons I fought so hard to get the rats to be able to come down here with me is that they fill my nurturing need. And yes, while I'm down here I get to look after Aidan, but he isn't mine, and the person he heads for when he most needs nurturing is Joan - and rightly so. So it's been good for me to have something to take care of. It's of course, stressful and icky training a puppy, but honestly, Ned seems highly intelligent and is picking up a lot of training really quickly, especially considering his age (the vet thought around 5 weeks, so he would now be about 6 weeks old). So yeah, he's pretty great... you know... for a dog.