Wow… it’s been a whole year.

As I write this and look down at my feet, I see a 70 pound hunka chocolate love that was minutes ago running around my house at top speed after a green squeaky ball that makes a noise that sounds so distinctive that it has become known as “The Farty Ball”. There are two such balls in my house, both will send my chocolate chunk into a dive bombing frenzy the second they appear in the hands of a human.

His happiness over these kinds of things… makes my days worth waking up to.

The last year has been hard for us as a family, but I want to celebrate today as the first birthday of my best friend and confidant. Mugen always has a hug for me when I need it, he even knows that when I go to sit down in a couple of spots, I sit there because I’m feeling sad or bored and he will come join me, plant his butt next to my hip and lay his head on my shoulder and wait for my arms to wrap around him.… [Read More]

Mugen’s 1st Birthday

So… the fence is in. Hubby and I are very pleased with it. We have to decide what color to stain it so that it doesn’t clash with our neighbor’s lovely chocolate brown fence.

I have been so excited. I should have taken Lucy and Mugen out on lead… but I didn’t. I was too excited. I opened the back door and they took off like shots. Lucy, of course, headed straight to the areas of the yard that she knew would take her out of the yard and none of them worked. She was confused by this… but then she started running around all over the place and had such a huge doggie smile. I wish that I could have found my camera. It was wonderful to see her being a dog.

Mugen did much the same, but he found STUFF in the yard. Stuff that had been lost when my children were very, very small.… [Read More]

Oh no! Not… DIRT!!!

I’m not sure why, but my entire family has been missing Reilly very hard this week. Yesterday, I dusted his commemorative dog bowl. His collar had dust on it and when I grabbed the leather lotion and a cloth… I just started crying. When my son came home, he said to me, without me having mentioned a word to him about my feelings, “Mom, I really miss Reilly today for some reason. I’ve been missing him all week.” My husband voiced similar feelings while cooking dinner and fending Mugen off of his pant leg. At one point, he bent down and put an arm around Mugen and said, “I’m used to there being a dog under foot, but you’re supposed to stay on the ground and sniff at the edge of the counter and then sit and wag your tail at me… and then I’m supposed to give you a piece of chicken when Mom’s not looking.”

The look on my husband’s face as he said this was a mix of joy and sadness.… [Read More]

The Morning Freak Out

I’ve had to adjust the routine since Lucy came home. It’s been rough actually but any time you have to settle into a new routine, it’s hard. So I get up at 6 am. I have the daughter attempt to take Lucy out, which does not work, for some reason, Lucy will only do her business when I’m standing outside with her which I am totally okay with now that I’ve realized it, but my kids would take her out and would forget to tell me that she didn’t go. You can imagine what a fiasco this has been.

Poor Lucy has been a brave soldier through all of this and is a very happy girl. I love coming downstairs in the mornings to her doggie smile and “bump, bump, bump” of her tail against my wall. I tried to get Lucy to sleep in my daughter’s room. I even put her bed in there, but Lucy went back downstairs to her spot on the floor next to the papasan in the parlor.… [Read More]

Dog Fart!

It started at the end of August. I hadn’t even thought of adopting a second dog yet. Mugen had been home for just under a month at that point, and I had no idea that anything this heart wrenching was going to happen. I was wrapped up in chocolate Lab puppy dreams and sweet puppy kisses.

I didn’t know anything at all.

At the end of August, a female yellow Lab was picked up by a shelter in LaPorte, Indiana. Her test for heart worms came back positive and she had a wound on her left eye that looked as though it was having trouble healing, or possibly worse. The shelter had no idea and had no way of knowing. Municipal shelters often don’t receive funding to give animals necessary veterinary care. These animals are usually on the short list to euthanasia if those shelters become over crowded, and are often difficult to adopt out.… [Read More]

Miss Lucy Girl

I know that not everyone wants to know this, but it is important to my story. See… I am PMS’ing this week. My PMS is brutal. My husband wants me to get on medication for it, except they can’t put me on medication for it (I have adverse reactions to birth control and all those warnings that they say women shouldn’t be or do when they’re on the pill… I do or am almost all of them).

This is Mugen’s second run-in with me on PMS.

I love my puppy, I can’t count how many times have I logged on to the off topic threads on the MINI forum to gush about some innocuous and cute little thing that he did. Any other week out of the month, this dog is awesome. But not this week.

It started two days ago. Mugen started chewing at a spot in my carpet nervously… it was almost compulsive.… [Read More]

Death Wish