Saturday

I took my significant other to the air port  today, for what will be a separation of approximately three months. While for some, this would be a gift, for me it has been a difficult day for transition. I thankfully have occupied the preceding hours of the day with the needs of our dogs. They have been a glad distraction.

This post isn't going to be a complete one. This is just a quick notation of thoughts I've had today:

No matter how much I sweep and mop and launder, I wage a losing war with dirt, twigs, and rocks.

All the bleach in the world won't keep my floors paw-print free.

A queen-sized bed isn't big enough to share with a 115lb Rottweiler and a little German shepherd when they decide they need to smother me.

They gang up on me. Often. Even when there is no food involved.

One of them will take their pills. The other will fake it like a person trying to escape a mental health facility in a 60's-style movie, a la Girl, Interrupted. And I will find them in the bedding. (My bedding. Not her's.)

If one of them is chewing on a bone, and the other is chewing on a plushie, one of them will try to steal the other's toy. Worse than toddlers.

All the cuddles and pats, kisses, wags, and woofs won't make today good, but they will make it more bearable.

Dog-park Gremlin

Daisy is somewhere between eleven and thirteen years old. I'm her third owner, and her backstory is incomplete, though what I was told involves a great deal of sadness. Her first owner was a nice, older man who treated her well and did some training with her before a stroke rendered him unable to care for her and her brother. The second man who cared  for Daisy was not kind to her. The details are unimportant, but we know that she was abused and as a result has some lingering social issues.

My snugglemuffin is a great dog. She loves people. She's calm and quiet and affectionate, and exceptionally good at keeping me aware of my surroundings. She doesn't bark unless its necessary, like to get my attention to bring her out. I have only great things to say about my girl.

That is, I only have great things to say about her until she is faced with another dog.

Yesterday, my boyfriend and I walked the babies to the dog-park. It's a nice forty minute walk from our apartment to this long, wide enclosed space where the dogs can run and sniff and pee and wrestle. We don't often bring Daisy because she's pretty cranky. But yesterday, she was so insistent that we bring her, whining and begging to come along with Teddy, that we relented and decided to bring her along.

We were there for a total of three minutes.

Daisy was fine until a much larger, younger dog she doesn't know approached her. It didn't go very well. There was a very loud fight, but thankfully no one was hurt. Obviously, lots of apologies were given and we grabbed both of our dogs and took them home.

Daisy's a reactive dog. She does better some days than others, with some dogs and not others. It's hard to predict how she'll behave until we see it. For instance, before we adopted Teddy, I used to bring Daisy to the park pretty often and she was fine. She's also great with dogs one-on-one, like when Coco The Fab Lab comes for a visit. The difference is her advancing age. She's cranky....like me.

I love my girl.

Adoption Tails

Every dog has a story to tell, and the most common among their owners is how their families become whole with the adoption of their furry members. Some are funny, some are sad, but all of them are unique to the family. Because we have two dogs, we have two stories. These are ours.

Daisy

At the age of 21, I was finally allowed to adopt a dog. I had wanted a dog so badly for the last two years, and my parents had disallowed it. Somehow I managed to get them to relent. It was two weeks after my birthday, and I drove past an animal hospital in my hometown that had a sign up: "Lab Puppies 4 Adoption."
I pulled into the parking lot and asked to meet them, expecting little wriggling babies. What I met was certainly not what I had pictured.
Daisy came sliding around the linoleum, her nails scratching underneath her. The handler let go of the leash and Daisy skidded to a stop at my feet. She rolled onto her back immediately and showed her belly to me. We played like old friends reunited after a long separation.
Finally, I asked about how I could take her home with me.
"Oh," the handler said, her face darkening. "She's already been adopted."
I didn't miss a beat. "If I can have cash here in thirty minutes, can we make this happen?"
The handler blanched and then nodded. "Sure." She told me the adoption fee, and we shook hands.
Thirty minutes later, I returned with the adoption fee and a little extra for the handler. She was on the phone with the woman who had put a deposit on Daisy. "We have a little girl here who's fallen in love with Daisy. Would it be all right if we returned your deposit to you so that she can take her home?"
The rest, as they say, is history. Daisy and I have been inseparable since.

Ten years later, it still cracks me up: little girl. I was 21.

Teddy

January 1, 2012 was an early morning for me: I had gotten off of work at 3 am, and got up to play with Daisy and my boyfriend at 9. He and I decided that a ride on the scooter was in order, and during the ride he remembered that he needed a heat lamp for his snake. We went to a pet store where the two employees behind the counter were talking about this little dog they couldn't sell, who was likely to be put down because he was getting to that danger point where he'd spent too much time in a crate.
I hated hearing that.
So I asked them to bring out the dog, said that maybe someone I knew would want one.
One of the employees vanished into the backroom and a moment later out bounded this long-legged, big skulled skinny little Rottweiler who was so excited to be free that he was peeing as he went. He was clearly underfed and...silly. So, so silly.
I knew it wasn't responsible, but I couldn't leave him there. He had been there for almost four months. Alone. Underfed. Unloved. So I asked them what they wanted for him.
"We just want him to go to a good home."
I paid only $200 for his paperwork, and brought him home later than night.

A little more than a year later, Teddy has seamlessly welded himself into our little pack.
Right now, the two of them are snuggled together on the couch, farting and snoring themselves into oblivion while I write this.

...There, I Said It

And, I do. Every night.

I sleep with my dogs in bed beside me, and sometimes on top of me, especially on those nights when my significant other is away on duty or out on patrol. They are both, undoubtedly, my dogs but we share them. We have a ten year old German shepherd/???? mix named Daisy, who has been with me since I was 21 and she was 2. The other is a pure-bred Rottweiler named Teddy, whom I adopted last New Year's Day.

Teddy loves to mug for the camera.

This blog is about my life with them, and how they make me a better person every day.

Right now, I'm squashed into the corner of our queen-sized bed because Daisy and Teddy are sprawling out around me, and I don't have the heart to disturb them while those goofy dog-snores mask the sounds of crickets and speeding cars outside. Daisy, surprisingly, is the worst offender. They've got a good 3/4 of the bed space, and Teddy's attempting to eek out a little more.

See? Daisy's snoring here, too.

These are two of the best things to ever happen to me. I want to share a little bit of their light.