Maisy

Maisy was a sweet little puppy that we agreed to babysit while her owners were trying to find a home for her.  Maisy never left.  She loves to have her belly rubbed.  She has put on quite a bit of weight since being spayed.  Kaits' friends call her the 40 pounder.  She just has a slow metablolism. 

The Three Stooges

It wasn't very hard to find a home for the puppies.  All of the puppies went to families that we knew somehow.  One family took two of them because they couldn't imagine only taking one.  Two puppies live next door to one another.  All of them are spoiled.  We decided on three.  Gunner, Buddy & Maggie.  Gunner was the biggest boy.  He looks like a small bear.  He is very gentle and loves attention.  Grace picked out Buddy.  He always seemed to end up in her room, so he had to stay.  He is also very big and thinks that he is a lapdog.  The most special puppy was Maggie, the little one who almost wasn't. 

Lucy

The first time I saw Lucie was when Grace was three.  She came back from a "shopping" trip with her dad and handed me my red sweater.  As I went to take it out of her hands, I saw a sweet baby dashhound snuggled into the sweater.  Lucy is awesome.  She is very funny and loves to be held.  She spends a lot of time inside the arm of my husbands' hoodie with her "little" nose peeking out.  She has been dressed up like a baby on many occasion.  At one time she had an Easter bonnet and a winter sweater.  Lucy loves us all and loves being an aunt to the puppies. 

Puppy Play

We felt like our puppies were pricesless.  It was a full time job taking care of them.  Thankfully, it was nice weather and we were able to have them outside some of the time.  They loved playing and Lola was very quick to teach them how to play.  She thrived on taking care of them.  One day, we were so busy with the puppies we noticed that Lola was missing.  Ugh, Lola ran off again.  We spent weeks putting flyers up, contacting the shelters.  When we thought all hope was lost, we got a call from someone who lived about 5 miles from us.  He said he heard a dog "howling".  We knew it was Lola.  She doesn't ever bark, she howls!  My husband went searching for her.  It took a few days and about 20 strategicly placed cheeseburgers for Lola to be found.  He was just ready to call it quits after searching for days when he saw something running back and forth in a field above the road.  He yelled for Lola, and the figure stopped and came running like a bullet towards him.  Once again, she was home.  Yes, it took some more Vet bills to get her back to being healthy!  Her puppies were so excited to be reunited with their mom.   I don't think that there was a dry eye in the house.  We were so glad to have her back. 

The puppies were a very popular attraction for people driving by our house.  The girls looked forward to playing with them night and day.  Lola was very attached to them, as were our other little ones.  We didn't want to sell them, we just wanted to find people who would adopt them and love them as much as we did. 

The Puppies First Soft Feeding

Poor Lola was worn out from feeding her puppies.  She became such a good mother.  Always rounding up all of the puppies and keeping them close.  We had one special little girl named Maggie.  Maggie was the runt.  We were constantly taking the bigger puppies off so that Maggie could feed.  It was always a struggle.  We knew early on, that if we were going to keep one of the puppies, it would be Maggie.  As they grew, it was hard to imagine having any of them gone.  It was a really messy day when the puppies had their first soft feeding.  We spent hours giving them baths! Despite all the work, they were so much fun!  Every time we let them outside, we counted to 10 as each of them came running back into the house. Of course, Sarge was always close by, being a really attentive father.  The puppies were so lucky to have thier mom and dad always around. 

Sarge aka Bubba Love

It was very clear from the beginning that Sarge was with us to stay.  We had no idea of what we were in for!  Sarge is always hanging around the girls to make sure that they are safe.  He always loves to snuggle and he gave us some very special gifts, ten really sweet puppies.  Sarge really never showed an interest in women till we adopted our Golden Retriever Lola.  Its a mystery of how Lola and Sarge actually got together.  We never thought that Lola would be comfortable enought to get close enough to Sarge, and we had put off having her spayed because of her fear of the vet.  Lola was never comfortable being around the other dogs, but she must have saw something special about Sarge.  On March 13th, 2009, we welcomed 10 little puppies into our home.  We had been anxiously awaiting the puppies being born.  It was 15 minutes before the girls were supposed to get off the bus.  Lola started having them, with my help.  I'm so glad that I was there.  She really didn't know what to do and started to try to sit on the first one out.  With my help, the tenth one was born right as the girls walked up the stairs.  We quickly realized that Lola and her puppies would need a lot of special attention to survive.  Of course, we were successful! 

The Story of Lola

Lola is a very special Golden.  We spotted her freezing in the cold right before Thanksgiving in 2007.  We spent weeks trying to catch her.  Our theory is that someone had dumped her off in the snow.  Finally, she gave in and bumped her head against my back and let me put a leash around her neck.  I brought her in the house and the girls were so excited.  Our plan was to find a home for her, but she was HOME.  After 3 very expensive trips to the vet, Lola was on her way to being healthy.  When we found her she was extremely underweight with matted fur, holes in the pads of her paws and a horrible infection that was traveling up her legs.  We don't know what her previous owners did to her, but we are so thankful that she found us.  We quickly realized that Lola had some other problems.  She is partially blind and her hearing is really poor.  Lola is very afraid of stairs and loud noises.  She has adjusted well to our family, but runs shaking to a corner when other people come into the house.  Lola easily gets confused and has run away 2 different times.  It didn't take us long to realize that she really sometimes doesn't know where she is going.  The first time that she ran away, she was gone for two months in the late winter.  We had contacted the shelters and looked for her for weeks.  We were very sad, thinking of her lost.  My husband was headed out of the house to go to my daughters school for Track and Field Day, when the phone rang.  The voice said, "we think we may have your dog.".  A wonderful woman at a shelter almost 30 miles away had rememberd us looking for Lola.  She had been dropped off by someone who had accidently hit her with thier car.  Lola was very extremely hurt and they were going to put her down.  Thankfully the same woman had remembered our call and decided to try to call us.  My husband immediately drove to the shelter.  Their laid a bloody and broken Lola.  When he said her name, she stumbled over and put her head in his hand.  We had our Lola back! The girls and I were at their school, he pulled in and came to get us.  "I have a suprise for you", he said.  Then he opened up the back of the car.  We were all in tears.  Once again Lola was back at the vet, then soon home for a much needed rest and some much deserved spoiling.   Lola disappeard one more time, but you will have to keep reading to find out what happened! 

Awesome Local Product

Inspired by Buddy is a home run business located in Erie, Pennsylvania.  The company uses environmentally sustainable practices to both produce and package these awesome doggie treats.  Our dogs absolutely LOVE them!  It's almost Valentines Day.  I'm sure your little one would enjoy a treat from Inspired by Buddy! Please check out the website at http://www.inspiredbybuddy.com/. 

Sarge

I would call Sarge the "best dog ever".. but I won't because there all little ears all around me!  He has been with our family since the girls were 2 & 3.  There is some mystery over where he came from originally.  He was a stray that was found near our house as a puppy.  My uncle adopted him for a period of time.  He appeared in our yard to play with the girls once or twice. We tried and tried to take him back to my uncles' house several times, but Sarge had found a new home and he has been here since! He is loving, faithful and the proud father of 10 gorgeous puppies... which is another story.   

All About Our Family

My husband and I have been animal lovers all of our lives.  When we decided to make a family together, it seemed necessary to include "some" animals. Well, this blog is devoted to "everything animal" and to support our goal of donating regularly to no kill animal shelters in our area.  We often joke that we live with our animals and not that they live with us.  So much of our life revolves around them.  They give us love, companionship, humor, acceptance and excitement.  I hope you enjoy our story, which may be weaved in and out of the past and present.  At the moment we have 2 human children (Grace & Kait), 8 canine children (Sarge, Lola, Aeva, Maisy, Lucy, Buddy, Gunner& Prince) & 6 feline children (Mia, Cellen, Sagie, Frank, Nutmeg & Cleo).  Are we crazy? maybe...?