Our Dogs

Our dogs are our children.  We are those people who let their dogs lick their faces and sleep in the bed and basically spoil them rotten.  We do not, however feed them table food unless it's meat or eggs or feed them from our plates at all. Because of this, my dogs can sit next to me on the couch and sleep while I eat because they know I won't feed them.  It's quite pleasant as opposed to the dogs of some people we know who actually try to jump in my lap and growl at me to feed them from my plate!  We don't tolerate that in my house.  For their treats, we buy raw chicken in bulk from the farmer's market and put each breast into individual ziploc bags for the freezer.  We cut off the fat and fry it up for a tasty dinner addition.  They loooove it and it makes their coats so soft and shiny.  We also feed them organic food.  It's partly because Skip has a sensitive stomach and will vomit regular food, partly because Layla is very picky (she rarely even eats food I drop on the floor!) and I got tired of giving her food I knew she didn't like, and partly because I want my kids to live as long as possible so I don't want their food to contain crap fillers that I refuse to buy in my own food.

We've had Skip, the Parson Russell terrier since the summer of 2005.  He sort of fell into our laps when our neighbor at a previous residence had a Jack Russell and knew a guy who was looking for a home for one of his.  You hear horror stories about spastic Jack Russells but he's actually really lazy.  He doesn't particularly like to go for walks except to pee on everything because he gets tired quickly. He much prefers to curl up on a pillow and sleep the day away.

...like this

She was the cutest puppy I've ever seen.  I have a ton of pictures of her literally posing for the camera.

Layla has been with us since the summer of 2008. She's a Lab/shepherd mix of some sort according to Fulton Animal Services but she's only 45 lbs so we don't know what all she's a mix of.  All I know is that I want to recreate that recipe because she is the sweetest dog I've ever had.  Even my mother, who usually hates anything she can't hold in one hand, loves her.  We got her when she was 6 weeks old and brand new to the animal shelter.  I couldn't believe when they told me she had been wandering the streets all by herself.  She was a bit difficult to potty train since I had never been responsible for that task before.  I ended up installing a dog door in our back door to our fenced-in yard because I was frustrated with myself for not being able to train her properly.  She ended up teaching herself to go when she needed to instead of just giving up when we didn't let her out at the right time.  Within a few weeks, we could leave her inside all day and she was fine.  She was never a terribly hyper puppy.  She's active, but knows when to chill out and lay down.  She no doubt got that from her brother. I love when she wakes us up in the morning by jumping on the bed and laying up by our heads.  One night she actually slept on my pillow with me like a little stuffed animal.  She's absolutely adorable.

 She's bigger now but just as cute and cuddly as ever

For all her affection towards us and close family and friends, Layla hates crowds and children.  I've never witnessed a child being unkind to her; they've all been very nice and gentle but for some reason, they freak her out. Skip, on the other hand, loves everyone and everyone loves him.  Something about a little white dog with a stubby wagging tail just makes people melt.

Lately, we've been discovering the lengths we're willing to go for our little furry kids.  At some point recently, Skip scratched his eye (Layla most likely had something to do with it).  It kept watering and he wouldn't open it so I rinsed it with contact lens solution several times a day like I've done in the past for seemingly identical injuries but it wouldn't get better.  Josh finally took him to the vet and they said the scratch had caused an ulcer on his eye and they gave him a few meds, a "cone of shame" as we call it, and sent him on his way, mumbling something about surgery if it doesn't get better.  Great...surgery on my 17 lb dog.  While all this is going on, we decided to finally get Skip's teeth cleaned again because his breath smells like death and rotten ass.  About 2 years ago, Skip went through a phase where he hated being left alone (our schedules didn't change.  It just started out of the blue one day) and he would tear up the house when we left.  He destroyed 4 potted orchids, a table I made in college, scratched the hell out of 2 doors, and 4 sets of window blinds.  We decided we could afford a metal cage more easily than more blinds and furniture so we got a large cage meant for large dogs and started putting him in there when we left the house.  Somehow, he always managed to escape.  See him do it at:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1zKklsIMBU   This went on for about 3 months during which he wore his canine teeth down on the metal bars.  He eats fine but the teeth looked awful so the vet said one might have to be pulled if the root is infected.  When I took him for the cleaning, I found that it does indeed have to be pulled because the nerves and blood vessels were exposed in the root under his gums.  It's a good thing Josh just got a job because after that bill, we had spent well over $1000 in 2 months on both of them. They looked at his eye on that visit and decided that the only person that could fix Skip's eye was the dog ophthalmologist.  You heard me...a dog ophthalmologist.  They do exist.  I took him because I can't stand to see my babies in pain and they were actually able to fix his eye with only one more round of medication so I was happy.  As for his sensitive stomach, Skip started gulping water and throwing up all the time a couple years ago and just as I was thinking his kidneys were failing, we switched foods (as a last-ditch effort before dropping $700 on vet tests) and he got better.  I swear, no more purebreds for us.  Animal shelter mutts all the way.  The few purebreds my family has had have all had lots of health problems (They've all been given to us though so we've never paid more than a shelter adoption fee for a pet. I'm very against buying animals when others need rescuing).

They can be pains sometimes but at the end of the day, they bring our family endless joy and we wouldn't have them if we weren't willing to take proper care of them.