As new real puppies joined the family, I installed a gate to keep less experienced little feet off the dome, but inevitably, guests or Pasiano would leave the gate on the stairs up to the casita whose terrace adjoined the dome.

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It is very difficult trying to manage three different groups  of animals: Coco and Morrie and Zoe, the cats and Annie. I  let Annie sleep with me because she cries if I am not within reach,  then this morning let other dogs in to my bedroom and they jumped up on bed with us and  were too frisky because they were hungry and wanted to be fed and she got scared so I had to put Coco and Zoe and Morrie out to feed them, then took Annie out front hoping she would pee but cats came in so I put cat food out and picked her up so she wouldn’t eat it, brought her in to the kitchen to feed her and afterwards took her for a walk which was a real adventure.

When we came in, I came into the bedroom to get my computer and the other doggies were at the south screen door to my room. Annie ran over to touch noses so I cracked the screen a bit to let her out . The others were gentler so she ran away to play with them, but five or ten minutes later she was crying at the screen and they were jumping about her.  I let her in and noticed wet footprints on the terrace and her legs and feet were sopping . Evidently she either stepped on the hot tub cover and then withdrew before sinking all the way in or stepped down one step into the pool, but if so more of her would be wet. At any rate, she is now sleeping by my side. It is tricky getting her acquainted with her new complicated environment.  While I had her out front, Coco was up on roof over the front door watching .Yolanda had left the outside gate to the upstairs open and the dogs can run up the stairs, jump up on the low wall and run over the top of the doggie domain (room I built on just for the dogs) and get onto the dome and run all the way around the roof of the house.  Only Coco does this at present, but the others can get up on the dome over my bedroom. See photo above as proof. I always keep the gate to the stairs closed for this reason.

No, I won’t Annie out on the back terrace around the pool unless I am near, but she has to learn about the pool. Yesterday the other dogs kept getting between her and water when she was near the pool. Diego and Morrie did this with Zoe, too.  Slowly, she will learn not to enter into the pool and  they will get used to each other. They are all very curious and not violent. Yesterday when I was in the hammock, Annie  kept checking up on me, then would run away to play with them. It  made me so happy, She has a babysitter this afternoon as I’m going to lunch at my friend Brad’s house and then out to an art show of my friend Isidro. Moms need to have some social life away from the kids!  Really does feel a bit like dealing with a newborn. This was not as much of a problem with any of the other puppies, but none seemed as damaged as Annie does. I think she is doing pretty well for as terrorized as she was just two days ago!

Note: that big dog on the roof is actually a statue of Frida. Her ashes are inside of it. Just had to put her up there in her favorite place where she spent most of every day surveying the neighborhood. This was pre-gate when she had full access.