Ivy

I have to tell y'all about my Ivy girl because sometimes dogs just blow my mind and Ivy has done just that, once again.

Ivy is kind of quirky. She's hard to explain. Sometimes we think she's part cat and she's without question the alpha dog of the girls. She may even be the alpha in the house in general, at least she certainly does think she's the boss around here. She really loves her people though. Every morning she wants to sit in my lap while I drink my coffee and watch Good Morning America. And every night when I crawl in bed, she waits until I'm settled then she stands on top of my chest for a quick little goodnight rub. She does this every single day like her life depends on it. If you try to hold her or love on her any other time of the day she will either a.) run away from you and jump in her bed to "hide" or b.) act like she feels really uncomfortable with the situation.
She knows our routine like the back of her paw. Every morning she is two steps ahead of me. She knows what I'm about to do when I'm about to do it. Ivy gets to Wells' bedroom right before I do and stands at his door, anxious for me to get her baby out of the crib. When Campbell was a baby, Ivy would follow me to his room in the middle of the night while I would feed him. She would crawl under his crib and wait then once she heard me tip toeing out of the room, she would pop out from under the crib and follow me back to bed.
She is not my most loyal girl of the two--that title definitely belongs to Madison. And really the only reason I say this is because of all her people, she loves her Gamma the most. When my Mom is here or we're at my parents house, Ivy follows my mom everywhere and sleeps with her at night. LOL. Such a traitor! See. Quirky.
Anywho, Ivy really blows my mind sometimes with the things she does. About a week or less before I've gone into labor with all three of my babies, Ivy would seem to be full of anxiety. She would shake and act completely on edge. The first time she did that, when I was pregnant with Campbell, I thought something was wrong with her so I took her to the vet. They looked her over and found nothing wrong with her and my vet told me that she believed Ivy sensed, or maybe could smell, that I was about to go into labor and it was making her anxious. Ivy did this right before I gave birth to each of my boys. By the time I was getting ready to have Wells, I knew exactly what was going on and knew I must be getting close to having him because of the way Ivy was acting.
Other than those three times, Ivy has never acted like that until a few days before Campbell got really sick. She started shaking and acting anxious. I told Scott how Ivy was acting and said to him "I think one of us is about to get sick." Sure enough, Campbell got really, really sick with the flu and had to be hospitalized. There is no doubt in my mind Ivy could either sense it or smell it coming and it made her anxious.
Isn't that so crazy? Dogs are so amazing sometimes and my Ivy girl really blows my mind sometimes. I think her calling in life is to be some kind of medical/emotional support dog! If she wasn't so high strung I might just sign her up. Ha! I love this girl. She's really special.