We’ve spent quite a bit of time getting to know our new neighbors at the Jekyll Harbor Marina. There are several folks who live aboard their boats and several of them have small dogs for pets. Now, Cindy and I have always been cat people. We like their independence and calm nature. Set some food out and give them a place to pee and poop and they’re good to go. Currently, we have two cats rooming with us (you don’t own cats): Kali and Cosmo. Kali is our 8 pound girl cat. She’s mainly tabby with a bit of Maine Coon thrown into the mix. She’s named after Kalispell, Montana, the town where I proposed to Cindy. Cosmo is our full blooded Maine Coon wild boy cat and, as Maine Coons are want to, weighs in at a hefty 16 pounds.

CosmoIMG-20111222-00050_2

                                  Cosmo                                                  Kali

However, as soon as I saw Cindy gushing over the cute little marina dogs at Jekyll, I knew we had a dog in our future. Sure enough, six months after our first visit to the marina, we brought home our new baby: a 10 week old Yorkie puppy named Missy. She’s wild, brave and very loving. In fact, she loves every person, dog, leaf and twig she meets. Contrary to the reputation of the breed, she isn’t at all yappy and has really taken to her new home. Kali eyes her very suspiciously and gives her a wide berth but Cosmo has a new best buddy. He’s extremely tolerant of his wild new roommate and wrestle’s with her almost non-stop. He weighs three times what she does and has a full set of claws but he still lets her jump all over him and at nip at his ears and tail without attacking her. They love tumbling over the floor (and couch and bed) together and tussle all the day long.  Cindy and I are constantly amazed how indulgent Cosmo is of Missy.

Missy

Missy wrestling with rope

Last week, with some trepidation, we took Missy down to the boat for Thanksgiving. We had no idea how well she would do traveling such a long distance and staying on a boat. Well, I’m happy to report Missy is a natural born boat dog. She did wonderfully on the ride down, sitting very quietly in her car seat without being buckled in and slept or sat up and looked around at the passing cars. No puppy accidents along the way either.

She loved everyone at the dock and they all loved her. And she LOVED the boat! She was wary of the various steps on the boat because they are steeper than what she had seen at home and she’s a very little dog. But each day she ventured further and further and by Day Three she was running out on deck (in spite of some truly atrocious Thanksgiving weather) and dashing to the front of the boat. She didn’t even flinch when we fired the engines up!

Missy the Boat Dog

Missy the Boat Dog watching the sun set on the one nice day we had

Speaking of the bad weather, we were really glad we trained her to use puppy pads instead of having to be walked. Way better than having to get up at 2 in the morning when its 30 degrees outside and raining! And she loves the trampoline at the front of our catamaran, which is great because we eventually want to teach her to “go” up there when we start living on the boat.

We’re planning to take her back when we go back down for New Years. We just hope that when we eventually take the cats down that they take to the experience as well as she did!