I can see I am going to start posting a lot of dog pictures, but this is an update from a few images ago. Sahraa (desert in Arabic because she's a desert dog) came home with us from the Animal Rescue League a little over a week ago (she was a rescue dog from a fire in Kuwait). I must admit, I don't think I've ever known a dog like this. After we left the shelter, she jumped in the car readily enough but later on managed to squeeze herself into a tiny space behind the seat, in the back window. When we got home, there was a bit of a problem because she apparently had never seen stairs, of which we have a lot. She mastered those in no time and now bounds up and down them with ease. We were concerned she wouldn't be housebroken as she was coming from the shelter, but after the first night, she's never had an accident in the house. I couldn't believe our good luck.

She adores people and wants to ingratiate herself with everyone she meets, sometimes to an embarrassing extent -- she has no hesitation to just park herself next to strangers and demand affection. She likes dogs as well and wants to play with them all. Even children are fine; the other day in the park, a toddler licked Sahraa's mouth (eek!). She constantly rolls on her back to have her chest scratched (I mean literally all the time). She discovered our bed the other day; whereas our old dog, Tilki, could never have scaled the very high mattress, Sahraa gets there with one graceful leap, sort of like a gazelle.

She doesn't really know how to play with things like balls, although she managed to take an entire basket of stuffed animals downstairs one by one to keep as her private stash. She's still a bit apprehensive about some things, particularly loud noises, and she is panicked by even the sight of a dog kennel. Probably bad memories from the long flight from Kuwait, compounded by being grounded in Europe for quite a while due to the volcano. That should make moving to Budapest in August a real challenge.

All in all, she is settling in well, and I think we have a wonderful addition to our family. (I think one of our neighbors would very much like to take her off our hands ;-))