Mondays

Rhiannon does not like Mondays, poor thing.  She loves her weekends and being able to get some regular/extra sleep!  Who can blame her, when she's waking up at 5:15am or earlier every week day.  We sure love this dedicated, responsible, hard-working girl!

 

Here she is with Oscar and Samson, trying to sum up some Monday courage!

 



 

Dogs' life

 

Well, we did it.  We are the official owners of a second dog, adopted from the animal shelter here on Tuesday, neutered and then straight to our house on Wednesday.  We had a long list of names we were thinking about--Chewie, Rex, Tex, Chip, Jett, and Samson, for starters.  Samson won in the end, mainly because I couldn't resist Rhiannon and Wade's puppy dog eyes! 

 

This morning I was out taking both dogs for a walk and had to laugh at the drivers swiveling in their cars to check out the odd pair.  You've got Oscar, a lean, mean machine, tall and white, and then you've got Samson with his cone of shame, 5-10 pounds overweight, short and black.  Or maybe people were just laughing at the short little woman out trying to walk them at the same time! 

 

I have slept on the couch the last three nights to be near the dogs downstairs.  Oscar is in his crate, and Samson is in an exercise pen right next to Oscar.  Samson can't fit in his crate yet because of the e-collar, and I imagine it's going to take a while for him to be comfortable in the crate.  I'm not really excited about bringing crates and dog beds up to our rooms, but I did read that shelter dogs in particular have abandonment issues and can get freaked out at night until they've adjusted and know for sure that you'll always come back.  Samson whined a TON the first night.  Seems silly, but it makes a lot of sense because when I came home from errands and carpool several times the past few days, Samson was beside himself when I walked in the door, SO EXCITED!

 

 

 

 

Oscar is doing pretty well with the new addition.  He wants to play with Samson so badly, but Samson lets him know when enough is enough.  I'm grateful for this, especially since Samson just had surgery!   We're trying to establish Oscar as the top dog, feeding him first, not letting Samson into his crate or play with his toys, etc., but sometimes it's a little unclear who the natural top dog is!   Oscar gets one-on-one time each day playing fetch, but otherwise we try to give the dogs equal amounts of attention.

 

Knock on wood, there have been NO accidents, just lots of little surprises and glimpses into Samson's personality and past.  I think he's been trained (good on a leash, dances for treats, potty-trained), and it's pretty clear he's been spoiled (overweight, jumps right into your lap when you're on the couch, loves to snuggle).  He's scared us a couple times with his jumping feats.  He scaled some chairs I had set up as a barrier because he wanted to be RIGHT next to me in the other room, and then the next day he jumped from the top of the couch.  I think we're pretty lucky that he didn't open his surgical incision!!!  

 

 

It'll be great to get Jason home tomorrow night from his high school reunion so that he can experience all the fun we've had with two dogs, ha-ha!  So far things are going great!  We're all a little in awe.  Wade put it best when he said, "I just can't believe that we met this dog for the first time on Saturday and now he's ours!"

Double trouble?

The kids and I have visited the animal shelter often this summer.  Ever since we got back from our Utah trip, I've been thinking about getting Oscar a 4-legged companion.  I know, crazy, right???  But Oscar is so stinkin' DEPRESSED for a few days after we get home because he's played his heart out with other dogs while we're away.  He gets a walk every day and he's given plenty of attention; we just don't play the way dogs do!

Oh, and seeing this all over town didn't help me let it go any, either:

So today Jason graciously joined us for another animal shelter field trip.  We wanted to show him Annie, this Vizla mix, and a couple other dogs we'd liked, just for fun.  Well, turns out that Annie is older, overweight, and SHEDS like nobody's business.  She was sweet, but the hair flying everywhere was a major deal breaker. 

On our way home, we stopped by the Desert Dogs store to check out the animal shelter's adoption fair.  We played with Pierre the poodle, another dog we liked at the shelter.  It was fun to give him a little one-on-one attention because at the shelter, his kennel mate wouldn't let us get near him, hogging all of our attention.  Pierre was pretty cute and super-soft.

But then we played with Chip, just for fun.  He'd had a bath, he was mellow, liked being petted, stayed right next to us, didn't bark, and, dang, he was awesome!!!   He's a Shih Tzu/Poodle mix.




Hi, Chip! (or maybe Chewie?  Rhiannon likes that name) 
ps.  This is Chip's picture on the shelter's Facebook page, pre-grooming

 

About 30 minutes after we got home I sat down to do this blog post, and Jason told me I should bring Oscar over to the shelter to meet Chip and see how that went.  Oscar and Chip did great.  There was no barking or biting; Oscar followed that little dog around like a puppy!

 

So, who knows?  We turned in an application and will wait for a home visit from an animal shelter employee next week.  Maybe when Jason gets home from his reunion trip there will be another "baby" greeting him at the door! :)

Exclamation points!

Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about the blog!  It's been a great month!  The van got fixed!  We went to Utah!  Wade turned 8 and had an amazing birthday!  Rhiannon had her first band concert!  Jason closed the pool!  Jason and I made a trip to the LA Temple!  I'm working on the Primary presentation and have had some good sub jobs!  We've got Halloween costumes picked out!  etc, etc, etc.
The truth is that we've just been busy, busy, busy, and a tiny bit preoccupied with our latest project--The Cushings are ready to get a dog!!!

We've always said we'd like to get a dog "someday."  We wanted to hold off because of Wade's allergies.  We really liked other people's dogs, but weren't feeling any tug to get our own and deal with that huge responsibility.  We fell in love with Cocoa and Bear and Beulah. We got our first pet Toby the Tortoise and got a little taste of what it's like to care for a creature daily.

Well, on our drive down to the temple on Saturday, Jason wanted to talk about a very random comment I'd made earlier in the week:  "If I could get a dog, I'd get a bullmastiff."  I was cooking dinner and remembered this amazing gentle bear of a bullmastiff I'd met at Rhiannon's friend's house, and it just kind of popped out of my  mouth. (I do that a lot.)  Jason wondered what exactly was keeping us from getting a dog, and we couldn't think of too many reasons!   We felt so great about it and couldn't wait to talk it over with the kids.

Since Sunday we've gotten 30+ comments on Facebook on our dog inquiry ("looking for a dog that doesn't shed, doesn't bark, and isn't hyper").  We've visited an 8-mo-old English mastiff named Axle, Shelby the Great Pyrenees, Annabelle the Bassett, and Charlie the Cavapoo (poodle and Cavalier King Charles Spaniel mix).  Every extra minute we're online looking at pictures of dogs or checking out Petfinder.com.  Today I checked out a stack of books from the library and I'm listening to a podcast about dogs while I'm typing this.  When Wade gets home in an hour, we're going to go make another visit to the animal shelter.  Maybe tonight we'll watch the Dog 101 shows that we've DVRed.

I guess what I'm trying to communicate is that we are well aware of 2 things: 

1.  We have a LOT to learn and prepare for!
2.  We are all REALLY excited about finding the perfect dog for our family Christmas present!