All The Dogs I've Loved Before

Once again we are dog owners. Those of you who know the dogs in our past will be shocked to know that we once again have taken a canine into our home. Those of you who didn't have the privilege of meeting our first two dogs are about to become acquainted with them.

First there was Snickers, I got her from a girl I worked with in TN as a gift for Harold. I should have know better than to take a chance on her when I learned that her Dad used to "bob" for the cat in their swimming pool. She was a beautiful dog, but she had a lot of issues and caused me much grief. My most embarrassing story about her is the day my neighbors had their carpet cleaned and left the back door open for it to dry. Snicker's happened to get out of her pen that day and hightailed right into their condo with me chasing her, apologizing all the way through to the poor landlord. We went in the back door and out the front, leaving trail behind us. She was constantly digging her way out of her pen and getting into mischief. The digging meant that she was always covered with mud. Almost worse that the carpet episode was the day our two elderly neighbors drove up to their house, opened their car doors to get out and Snicker's got in with them, mud and all. Harold was so embarrassed he made me go do the apologies. She actually moved back to FL with us, but since we were renting and had no yard for her to play in we had to get rid of her. It was a very sad day indeed.

Here she is attacking me and Ethan while Harold took pictures.

Next came Chandler, who I have no pictures of and have no regrets about it. When an MFI volunteer offered him to Harold I very grudgingly consented. He was ten years old and very set in his ways. He also had very serious nerve problems. We were told that he had been attacked by an alligator as a puppy, therefore he could not handle loud noises. This included thunder storms and firecrackers. He would start shaking uncontrollably and try to crawl on our laps, he weighed about eighty pounds. Loud noises also gave him diarrhea. On the Fourth of July I was fixing food for a cookout and the neighborhood kids were doing fireworks outside our house. He wanted my full attention which I was not able to give him so I locked him in our bedroom. Pretty soon I started smelling something foul, I opened the door to find that he had had multiple episodes through which he had nervously paced around in. I made Harold clean up the whole mess while I tried to control my carnal nature. He also shed more that any dog I have ever seen before, and we had green carpet. Not a good combination. When I became pregnant with Dylan we realized that four kids and an old nervous dog in a trailer wasn't going to work so away he went to some friends of his previous owner.

Now let me introduce you to the newest canine in our lives. His name is Dorado, because he came from Guatemala City. Dorado means golden in Spanish for those of you aren't bilingual. We had talked about getting a dog for the boys, since they asked for one at least twice a day, but weren't sure we were ready yet. Mrs. Duren went to Guatemala and guess what she came back with. The problem was that none of her kids were quite ready for a dog yet. When Emily told me that they were not going to be able to keep him, my heart started softening. My boys had played with him with her boys and were quite smitten. After talking it over Harold and I decided that the time was right, the dog was the right kind, and our house is finally right. We even have a doggy door on our back porch. He is much better behaved at fifteen weeks than our other dogs were as adults. The boys absolutely adore him and he seems to them as well. I called home from work one night, and Harold told me that Dylan was flossing his teeth (the dog's) and he seemed to enjoy it. Dylan has had to deal with getting pushed around a little, but it is somewhat enjoyable to watch.

Please keep us in your prayers as we potty train and housebreak at the same time.