And Then There Were Six.....

Are we crazy....it's really any ones guess, but we got a 2 month old puppy from the Humane Society here in SA, And doing the math, his and Riley's birthdays are pretty close!

Poor Miles was the only dog we had left. We got him as a puppy and he had never been the only dog around, so needless to say he has been lonely! Following us around the house and looking sad and pathetic! Poor guy.

After some discussion Jeff, Riley and I all went to Humane Society....

[ Quick Side Note : I had mentioned to Jeff about taking Riley to have his picture taken with Santa this year. He nixed the idea because "Santa will be just crawling with germs", or something to that effect. I quietly agreed and went on with my day. A week later when the discussion of going to the Humane Society came up, I said we both had to be there to pick out the dog but wondered what we would do with Riley. Jeff was so stoked about the puppy/dog idea he had no qualms what-so-ever with bringing Riley to the animal shelter. A little while later I mentioned the discrepency, and asked if maybe a few years down the line we wouldn't have regrets about not taking Riley to get his pic taken with Santa his first Christmas....he agreed. So tomorrow we go see Santa!]

as soon as we walked into the puppy room there was a cage with 2 brown lab-mix puppies is the first cage we saw. I immediately fell in love, but quickly walked around to the rest of the cages to make sure I saw everyone before making a final decision. And of course these were the cutest ones. There was a boy and girl, and for some reason I told Jeff we should take the boy. He hadn't been neutered yet, so they told us we couldn't pick him up until the following Friday.

This afternoon I stopped by to See him again and ask if there was any way we could bring him home sooner....and low-and-behold he was cleared to be taken him right then. I had an errand to run, but once that was done I immediately went back to pick him up. Didn't have a cage, paperwork or anything.

Good little Coltrane sat in my lap the entire way home (in 5 o'clock traffic none the less).

Of course once we got him home and the reality of a puppy and a 7 week old kicked in...especially when I started wondering what I was going to do when Jeff had to go back to work in a couple of days! Then when Riley started to get fussy and we put Coltrane in his kennel and he started howling loudly I began to freak out! Jeff immediately sent me to the corner store to buy myself some wine....which I obligingly did.

I came home to an empty house with everyone (except Kitty - who had mysteriously disappeared) in the backyard. Apparently Coltrane was howling because he had to go to the bathroom...which he did in the kennel. Jeff noticed when it began to stick and he saw some brown substance on the gate.

By the way - please realize that for now, when I say "kennel", it's actually our cat carrier.

The rest of the night was spent getting Riley for bed, making and eating dinner, and mostly playing with Coltrane in the backyard to wear the poor guy out (which actually worked).

Of course at one point when we brought him inside after playing outside for quite a while, he promptly peed on the bedroom carpet.....why do I see an endless road of cleaning up a lot of pee and poop (human and dog) in my future....

Once we took care of that situation, we slowly coaxed him back into the kennel (he was obviously tired from a big day since he had started to fall asleep on my lap outside).

By 9:00 the house was dark and I was the only one still awake!

Stay tuned for more crazy Lunsford household antics....

Good-Bye Mary Jane

In an earlier post I mentioned how we lost our oldest dog Sam. A couple of weeks after we brought Riley home we also lost the next oldest dog, Mary Jane. She had been sick for a few months and loosing weight. She would be fine and then would obviously feel bad, this happened off and on for several months.

Finally one day we came home and went to let the dogs inside, she did not immeduately come, which was a sign she was not feeling well again. I went to check on her and she was laying on the dog bed on the patio. One pupil was larger than the other, she had peed on herself and thrown up as well. It was a sad and scarey sight.

Jeff took her to the vet and they decided it was best to let her go. Jeff said this time he wasn't crying or didn't feel as bad, though he did not go into the room with her as he did with Same. (Mary Jane was more my favorite than his). All was well until the vet tech came back to tell him it was done. With Sam they made a mold of a paw print and sent it to us in the mail. This time the vet tech began talking with another and mentioned she thought they might be out of clay to make the mold......and apparently that was what finally broke poor Jeff. He said he started blubbering like a baby, the other pet owners in the waiting room told them they had to go out and buy more. Jeff said he was so pathetic they probably did it right then.

We did get her paw print mold in the mail a short time later.

When I texted my mom what happened she texted back the sweetest thing and said that Mary Jane taught her to love dogs. Makes me tear uo even now thinking of that!

When we would go to the dog park Mary Jane would completely ignore the other dogs and go get as much attention from the other dog owners as she could get....she was pretty smart!

Good-bye Mary Jane, you were the sweetest, lick-iest, people lovin'-ist dog I ever met.