(Wo)Man's Best Friends

This post is dedicated to our current "kids" - Copper and Ginger. Where oh where to begin.

Ginger joined our family last fall from my brother's family after an allergy issue led to the need for her to find a good home. BJ and I always thought of Ginger as a great dog, so our conversation when we decided to ask if we could take her lasted all of 3 minutes. Ginger (a/k/a Ginger Girl, GiGi, Wolf Dog, Miss Mysterious or the "Nice Puppy" as referred to by the neighborhood kids) has been a great addition and has confirmed that we aren't horrible dog parents, Copper just has a unique personality. GiGi's personality is very calm, although she would love to chase the deer that we see on our daily walks and likes to randomly eat items just to keep us on our toes. Case in point, Miss Mysterious has been able to somehow open the bread drawer, carefully unwrap a full loaf of bread and eat every slice of bread. Or, Miss Mysterious has been able to carefully select a book from my bookshelf and nibble a little bit. I'm OK with the tattered book look, but so far GiGi has only selected books written by Barack Obama or a few books on liberalism. Clearly this raises concerns that she may be a conservative. If I start coming home to our TV on Fox News, we'll have a sit down. On more than a few ocassions than I would like to admit, we've given into her pleading brown eye ways to let her have some off leash time, only to be wandering around for the next 20 minutes screaming "Ginger" at the top of our lungs. She always comes back though :)! When Copper is acting up and being scolded, GiGi loves to play the role of older sister and chimes in on the "scolding". Because GiGi came from a house with little ones and because of her sweet personality, we are not at all worried about her reaction to Poppy. In fact, the neighborhood kids know that they are more than welcome to come up and rub GiGi's stomach, while we send Copper to the back room.

Copper (a/k/a Copper Whopper, Squirrel Puppy, Copperella, Topair, Crabby Butt, Baby) is considered our first experiment in parenthood, but if he were a teenager, he would probably be smoking, drinking and stealing our cars. Copper was a gift from BJ on our first anniversary so he has been a member of our family for over 7 years. I feel like I could write a book about Copper, whether it be the reports from doggy daycare that we used to receive, to the fact that he actually smiles, to the fact that he has "fake" thrown up when we've started talking about Poppy. Most people say that we humanize animals too much and to that I say - come and spend some time with Squirrel Puppy. A random side note about the nickname "Squirrel Puppy". Despite Gigi's mild temper, we were warned that she tended to chase squirrels. Well, when we first brought GiGi home, she just stared at Copper like she wasn't sure that he was a dog. It was then that I became concerned that she might think that he was a squirrel. Thankfully, that was one of my many irrational concerns, but the nickname "Squirrel Puppy" just stuck. Most people know that Copper is very protective of BJ and I and has snapped at more than his fair share of people. In light of this, we began "Operation Peaceful Co-Existence Between Copper and Poppy", which entailed private, in-home dog training. While we cannot guarantee what the outcome will be, we want to be armed with as many tools as possible to (1) keep Poppy safe; and (2) keep Copper, period. We're optimistic. I also envision many baby gates, but that is ok. To my mom who is probably saying a rosary right now, please note that keeping Poppy safe is our number one priority.

At the end of the day, B.J. and I are crazy dog people. We call sheriff departments when we (I) suspect animal abuse, are lifetime members of the ASPCA and can cry just thinking about Marley and Me. We've switched vets when we thought that the vet wasn't giving enough TLC to the dogs, checked out various boarding places to the same degree that some parents check out daycares, called to check in on the dogs when they are boarded, ordered birthday cakes from the local dog bakery, driven 45 minutes so that the dogs can play at the "nice" dog park, etc. It is hard for us to envision a life that does not involve a dog and I know that growing up my pets made pretty good play mates (sorry to those cats that I used to put dresses on...I didn't know any better at the time), so we are hoping that we will become one happy family - Poppy, puppies and all.

We've been told to "wait and see" how life will change when we become "real" parents and while I do not doubt for a minute that Poppy will become number one priority, we wanted to give a little shout out to our current "kids" who keep us on our toes and love us unconditionally.