I often talk about my Wild House of Pets but I don’t think I have ever done a formal introduction of who they all are. At this moment, I have three dogs, and three cats and a mouse. I’ll start with the dogs since that actually needs an “explanation”. [Pardon the poor quality of the images. Most of them I had to scan from my scrapbooks since the originals are packed away.]
Growing up my mother had a Pekingese which kind of just laid around being there. I loved that dog, but she was my mother’s and I couldn’t do nearly as much with her as I desired. I decided back then that one day I would have a small dog of my own who would be rambunctious and drive me crazy. I figured that was better than a dog who just laid around doing nothing.
When I met my husband I had told him I wanted a dog and he kind of said yeah, maybe but we ended up getting a cat instead. He told me when we moved into a house we could have a small dog if I wanted. For the next few years we lived in apartments so getting a dog was put on the back burner. And then suddenly one day out of the blue he announced he had been to the local pet shelter and had a dog picked out for me. It wasn’t exactly the scenario I had planned for picking out a dog but I went along with it.
The following day we headed down to the pet shelter and I met a white, frail chihuahua/terrier mix who scared me to death. There was something off about her but she looked so pitiful and there was no way I could say no. We took her home and took her under our wing and gave her lots of love. We later learned that she had been badly abused. She would cower at the sound of a raised voice - and we are some loud people. She wouldn’t eat in front of us. Instead when she thought we were not watching, she would grab mouthfuls of food and take it elsewhere, spit it out and then eat it. It was all so sad.
We decided to name her Pepper because we thought it was funny to name a white dog Pepper. She took to the name very quickly.
Over the following weeks I noticed she was getting fat. When we got her she was emaciated so to see her adding on pounds was a very welcomed sight, except that she wasn’t gaining weight overall, just in her stomach. I immediately told the hubby that I thought she was pregnant. He said absolutely not. He finally came to terms that I was probably right so we took her to the vet.
The vet shocked us with the news that she expecting not one or two but maybe four or five! Everyone was very concerned because Pepper is a not a big dog and it was expected that the birth would be rather traumatic for her. The vet had us all concerned and prepared to call doggy 911 when she went into labor.
Around her estimated due date we set up a cozy bed for her in my office since that’s where she enjoyed being. We walked around on pins and needles in anticipation. We had been told labor would last for hours and hours and it would be very hard on all of us. Every sound we heard we’d run to check on her to see if she was OK. I am sure she thought we were crazy.
On September 29, 2002 we were sitting around watching “Casino”. At about 3 am, we figured it was late and should get some sleep. As were getting ready to lay down, Pepper walked into the room panting, made some off the wall sound and walked away. We weren’t sure what to make of it so we followed her into the office. There she was in her box looking as normal as could be. My husband reached down to pet her and she began licking her back rapidly. Suddenly out popped a puppy. She didn’t grunt, wince or anything. It was a slip and slide birth. Over the next hour and a half she had 5 more, in total she had 1 boy and 5 girls. We named them Guapo, Chulita, Sandy, Chiquita, Rosie and Milagro.
I decided immediately that I did not care what any one said I was keeping Milagro. She was the runt of the bunch and the one we never even expected. All along it was supposed to be 4-5, not six!
Even though Pepper had been abused, she took to being a mother like this had been her third litter. She watched over them carefully and tended to them constantly. We bonded with each one of them as teethed, had their first solid meal, and took their first venture outside. Deciding who would get the puppies was a hard hard choice.
In the end, we decided to part with four, and they all went to wonderful families. The only one I still have doubts about is Rosie who went to live with someone who was a close friend of mine at the time. I’d like to snatch her up and give her a better home but it’s a little late for that now. The hardest choice overall was deciding who else we were going to keep.
I had already decided I was keeping Milagro (which means Miracle in spanish). My husband had grown attached to Chulita who was this very active puppy. She was SO cute. However, we noticed that our precious Sandy was a bit slow. We would be outside playing fetch and the other pups would run for the stick, and Sandy would run in a circle. She would run towards the stick, spin around and circle back excited as ever as though she accomplished something huge. No matter what we did, it appeared she could not grasp the simple concept behind fetching.
In the end we decided to keep Sandy because along with fetching, there were other areas where she looked like she didn’t quite get it. Today, she is the best fetcher we have… We think she was faking her stupidity all along as a ploy so we would keep her around. Milagro is a super genius who entertains me on a daily basis. As for Pepper, she has grown out of her shell to become a very active and loving dog.
So now you know the doggy side of my animal house.
