Dogs

After our dog, Mocha, was killed on the road, we decided to take a break from dogs and got some cats. Well, one by one they would disappear. 

A couple weeks ago, Dan and I were in Tallahassee one Saturday and outside the one Pet Store, they had a lady with dogs to be adopted. One caught Dan's eye...it was a black lab. So, he hunted me down in Michaels and asked if I would be okay with getting another dog. The lady let "Charlotte" out of the cage and let us talk to and pet her. We agreed that she seemed like a good fit for our family. She was already 2 1/2 years old, so we would be avoiding the puppy stage.

We filled out the required paper work. The neat thing about this program is they bring the dog to your home (even though we live an hour away) and let the dog stay with you a week or more to see if it is a good fit for your family. If you are comfortable with the dog, then you adopt it.

So, we were told we would hear something in 1-2 days. 

Well, we didn't hear anything in those 1-2 days, so we waited.

In the meantime, we purchased a kennel and got it set up.

Danny is such a good helper. He loves putting stuff together and it made Dan's job easier!

Haha! We got you trapped!! Or not! ;)

Well, the day we got the kennel set up, I finally called. Come to find out that they weren't accepting us because we wouldn't be keeping the dog indoors and that is what she was used to! :P So why didn't they tell us that right away? We even told them the day we looked at the dog that we would keep it outdoors!

Labs are not made to live inside, in my humble opinion!! :P 

So, we were a little bummed. Here we had invested so much time and money into preparing for Charlotte to live with us....all for nothing??

Well, sometimes God has better things planned. The adoption would have cost $150 and we NEVER paid a cent for any of the dogs we had. I was a little uneasy of paying that much for a pet. 

A few days later, after searching local shelters and some other options, we found an ad on facebook, for two black labs. They are brothers and are 3 years old {once again skipping the puppy stage}. So last Tuesday night we went to look at them. They seemed like really nice dogs and we decided to take them home!

Picture this~ two large dogs who hadn't ridden in a vehicle for a few years, 2 large doghouses, & 4 humans in a minivan! ;) We had the back seats down, but the dogs rode home between the kids and the front seats! :) Quite the ride. I am just really, really thankful they didn't get car sick!!

Here they are.....Max {on the left} and Rex {on the right}

Rex is the leader of the two. We had considered just one dog, but I think Max would be lost without his brother!

Max is more laid back and obeys easily. He loves to "shake a paw".

Duke was not impressed with these new "invaders"!!

He spent most of the first three days in the tree!

Just when I thought the cat and dogs were going to be okay with each other, Rex attacked the cat. I heard the awful commotion outside and he had the cat in his mouth and was shaking him! Needless to say, Duke was traumatized. He stayed way high up in the tree ALL day long. We finally got him down in the evening to make sure he wasn't hurt bad. He limped a little bit. 

The next day he was gone all day, and I was a little worried we wouldn't see him again, but he's been coming back. The dogs have been banned to the kennel except daily walks to use the bathroom! They know they did wrong! I'm just not sure how it's going to go from here on.

Lazy dogs lay down to eat! :)

We are putting up a short stretch of chain link fence on the one side of the house that had been there previously. It encloses the back yard. Once we are done, I think the dogs will be free to roam back there. 

We had tore that chain link fence down a few years ago, because I liked to be able to get back to my washline easier without having to walk around the house. So we are adding a gate this time, to make it more accessible. {might take pics tonight} Dan still has 2 poles to put in and then we have to finish the chain link.

Life is adventurous!! :)