First, let me introduce the lovely lady in the above photo! It's my daughter Trish and her new boss, Jim Hunt, at a soiree her new store ( his company ) took part in last month. EQ3 is a Canadian company that just recently dipped its toe into the American Market ( Dallas & Las Vegas ). More sites are in the works.

Back to the dog day or lack thereof... My son and his family, including his little female dog Dach, stopped by for a few hours on their way back from Louisiana to San Antonio. Frankly, I was dreading the visit based on the dog fiasco last year in a similar drive-by visit.

My dogs are not socialized to other dogs not in their pack. I didn't know Jim had Dach with him on the trip last year, and when he stepped into the house with that female dog ( my dogs are neutered males ) all four male dogs went ballistic! My Shelties settled down quickly, but Trish's Beagle barked and tried to bite poor little Dach. The scene between my son and Smokey (Beagle), between my son and me, was not pretty. That's putting it mildly. He went off on our dog and I went off on him. Like I said....not pretty at all!

So, I was dreading today. I just knew the weather would either be stormy or too hot to allow my dogs to stay out back. Also, today is lawn service day, and they were due about the same time as my son and family.

When a clap of thunder bounced me out of bed I really wanted to just crawl under the covers and hope the day would go away. Fortunately, we only got a few drops of rain in my area and the clouds gave way to steamy sunshine. Weather wise, things were looking up. The next hurdle was the lawn service.

My grandson, Bryan, called a little before 1 pm to say they were about 10 minutes out. I panicked. The lawn guys were running late! I sent the boys out front to scout for both the service and Jim's arrival. I was sure they would hit at the same time.

As it turned out, the mowers came and left just before Jim and family drove up. After some initial barking and circling amid getting-to-know-you sniffs, etc. the dogs enacted some kind of tentative truce. The visit went off without incident and was really fun. A great time was had by all.

As a bonus Bryan has free time in August to come for a week, after all, so I made flight arrangements! I thought he had too many irons in the fire for a visit this summer. Not so! YAY!

It could have been a "dog eat dog" day, literally, but it wasn't. The pack decided to be friendly, or at least, tolerate the visiting canine this time. The two alpha dogs ( my son ) ( me ) didn't have to tangle. This is a good thing!