*Bobby's Side*
Ok, let's get this straight right off the bat - Suzanna and I don't have any kids. We're not even close to ready for them.
However, we do have three amazing and wonderful dogs, but it wasn't always that way. There hasn't always been three and they haven't always been amazing or wonderful.
When Suzanna and I started dating, she had a dog. His name is Bear. Now Bear is a bear of a pomeranian. Yep, that's right one big little dog. He's nearly 30 lbs and at the top of his head he's knee high (check the photo).
After we bought the house, we started talking seriously about getting another dog. In fact, a few months before we bought the house, we had found a great "little" Bernese Mountain Dog. I grew so attached, I named her Charlie. But we never took Charlie home, and it turns out this may have been a good thing.
For nearly the entire time that we had been dating, Suzanna had been talking of a trip to Atlanta to visit her aunt and then roll up to the Carolina's to visit one of her best friends. She has always spoken very highly of all of her aunts, but she was excited to go and visit her Aunt Kay because Kay always wanted her to visit and she thought Kay would love me.
As life sometimes goes, we never managed to make that trip. Much to our extreme regrets, Kay passed away shortly before Thanksgiving of 2006. But she left behind two very special guys just for us. I'll never forget going to the airport and fetching these two scared little dogs - a pug and a shih-tzu - who had just taken a flight across country at a time that was also very hectic to them.
At first Gomez (the shih-tzu with surprisingly a very fitting name) and Chaps (the pug) struggled to adjust. They lost any house training they had gained and seemed depressed and standoffish, much as you would expect foster children to be. But after awhile, they began to accept their surroundings. They took almost instantly to Suzanna (probably because she looked so much like Kay) and eventually took to me too.
Now, despite every family's moments of frustration, the five of us have formed a wonderful tight-knit family. I would like to think that if Kay were looking in on us from time to time she'd be so happy to see how well her boys have adjusted to life here in Arizona.
*Suzanna's Side*
Haha, I think most people that know us, know that the dogs are our kids. We're not at that place in our life to have human kids.
I was totally nervous to have Bobby meet Bear because Bear doesn't like strangers. He barks and barks and barks at them, which isn't neccessarily a bad thing when you're a single girl living by yourself. Bobby wanted to see/meet Bear the first date, but I waited to do that introduction. The time came, and even though Bear barked and barked and barked, a few hours later, Bear was licking Bobby. I think after I had Bobby feed and walk Bear one day when I had to work late, that Bear was forever Bobby's dog too. I'm sure Bear enjoyed his one on one time that he had with Bobby and I, but I think Bear likes having someone to boss around (he totally tries to wrangle Chaps, kinda funny if you ask me) and be with him while we're at work.
Bobby already shared the heart breaking and heart warming story of how we got our other two dogs, but I will also never forget going to cargo wing of delta to pick up one pug and one shih-tzu, shaking, whinning, and scared in their crates. My heart melted in that one single moment. Chaps and Gomez have two distinct personalities, and we are so happy to have them as part of our family. I think Kay would be happy too. We love all 3 of our dogs very much.
No comments:
Post a Comment