Happy Birthday, Dear Nerve

Last week was Minerva's 3rd birthday, so I thought I would celebrate with a little post. Seems like it was only yesterday that we brought her home from Guide Dogs two days before Christmas with a satellite dish on her head. To briefly recap her life thus far....
Minerva was born in the Guide Dogs for the Blind (GDB) nonprofit organization. As volunteer puppy raisers, Andy and I took Minerva into our home at 9 weeks old and began training her under the leadership of a GDB club leader, our friend Cindy. Minerva had to get a little stitch on her eyelid before we took her home, hence her first car trip with the satellite dish.
She made friends in the Guide Dogs program and outside of it, including the Rhyne Black Dog club (pictured here: Minerva, Molson and Tye).

She went on fun trips like Tahoe for snow...
...and camping for summer.As she got older, it became clear that Minerva was not cut out to be a guide dog--far too easily distracted and self-centered. So we were given the option to adopt her as a pet and of course now she is a permanent member of our family. She enjoyed about two months of luxury (the occasional snuggle on our bed, weekly trips to the dog park) before we learned that Alton was on the way and Minerva began her migration to second-class citizen.

Before you have a baby, people are constantly telling you (some smugly, some defensively) that you might think of the dog as your "baby" now, but once your child is born the dog will become just a dog. As much as I knew this intellectually, I didn't understand how it would play out until Alton came along. Minerva's life has begun to closely resemble that of Lady from Disney's Lady and the Tramp. "Stop that racket; you'll wake the baby!" I try not to be too hard on her, but there are times that after rocking, nursing, cuddling, cajoling Alton off to sleep, Minerva barking at the UPS guy/someone walking their dog two streets away/nothing becomes less "ha-ha" funny and more "I'm going to kill you with a rusty spoon" funny.

But a lot of people have asked how the Nerve does with the baby, and aside from me giving her dirty looks and pouncing on her when she makes noise during his naps, Minerva does very well with the new man in her life.

She is not allowed into his playroom (so that at least one room in the house is not completely covered in dog hair, which is probably a bigger beef to me than her making noise) and so she sits at the door of the playroom looking forlorn as he scrambles around and pulls books off the shelf. But she is very, very patient with him as he smacks her head, pulls her jowls and grabs her toes. She just sits there letting him batter her (as loyal dogs do) and waits until I'm not looking to sneak in the occasional lick to his head, hands and face.
The only time that jealousy reared its ugly head was when we had houseguests for most of July...houseguests who were very interested in the baby and not as interested in Minerva. But even then her naughtiness ran mostly to stealing flip flops and ensconcing them downstairs to later use as chew toys.

So all in all, not too many complaints on either her side or ours about the new family dynamic. I think her biggest problem is that the number of pictures of Alton instead of her is way out of hand, hence why she sidles into so many pictures of him when he's on the floor. And don't feel too sorry for her. Remember, you are sitting at your computer reading this blog when you should be writing a deposition/teaching small children/paying your bills online, and Minerva spends about 9/10ths of her day like this:
Happy birthday, Minerva. You're a good dog.