Pack of Paws

When we moved into our house now of three years we had four dogs and one cat left from our previous pack. I say pack because at some point we had seven dogs and two cats. Because some were all very close in age we lost several in a matter of the first year in our new house: our cat, Gandalf to cancer at seven, our beloved Konan, the frankendog also to cancer at nine, and our little chihuahua Calliope to cancer at thirteen. We were devastated. We had just our thirteen year old Yorkie and our daughters min pin left.

We mourned for about a week and then since we now had an acre of property and my husband said he wanted at least three big dogs to guard and enjoy the property we headed to the local pound and adopted Buck(the alpha) a two year old German shepherd, and against my husband’s better judgement(the dog I chose) Rambo a ten month old Boxer/pit mix. His pound puppy name was Mayhem. It was a fitting name. The boys were like peanut butter and jelly from day one and Buck to this day does not like being separated from his Rambo.

Months had passed and things were going well(life was not chaotic enough) so we decided to go to the pound and adopt one more big dog and we listened to our friends, who recommended we get a female to calm the boys down so we adopted Bella, the cutest little German shepherd girl of four months old. Of course, I didn’t do my research and went into being a German shepherd mom with zero knowledge of the well known fact that GSDs under two are proper hellions. Some people have even coined them:velociraptors. Bella will be two next month and she’s still not grown out of that stage. She got stitches in the face just a few days after she arrived home for trying to steal the alpha’s food, swallowed a myriad of socks and stuffed animals, counter surfed, making off with various meals -including three raw hamburgers this morning, and is too smart to be herded or corralled like the other dogs. She even clicks her teeth at you to taunt you to catch her. (Proof our dogs are not really obedient) She pretty much does what she wants.

Now if you thought that was the last entry into our pack you’d be wrong. Because in the interim of adopting Bella, we were letting our neighbor’s semi-feral shepherd mix in our backyard to play, because the neighbors let her roam the streets. Our boys loved her so much, that after months of asking our neighbor and her denying us my husband just let her in the house one day, and then there were five. If you thought that rounded out the pack, nope because Roxy,(are you familiar with the police song: Roxanne) that’s what we named her ended up (you guessed it) being pregnant from her nights in the streets. We knew that she was running around with an Australian cattle dog, a stray that a neighbor and I ended up finally catching and luckily her boyfriend took him to his three acre ranch in Hemet and he lived happily ever after. I love when that happens.

I was in denial about Roxy being pregnant but pretty soon it was obvious. We took Roxy in probably around February and she ended up giving birth to three little puppies: one black male puppy, and two sable colored females on an unusually cool May 1st night. We didn’t know anything about birthing puppies, so we scoured the Internet and bought a kiddy pool (and various other things)and put blankets in it and sure enough she sought it out when the time came. Roxy as it turned out was under a year so she wasn’t ready for babies and she was also malnourished from her previous home. It was a challenge to get her to stay with and feed her puppies, so we ended up supplementing her food and moving her to our guest bedroom (because she was so restless) to make her and babies more calm. It was super stressful, but all three babies survived.

The babies are now a year and a half. My daughter took the male: Angus, and we ended up with both females(Peaches and Simba) because we couldn’t manage to find good homes and I’ll be honest I started becoming attached to the runt:Peaches. She’s one of the weirdest looking dogs you’ll ever meet, but that’s me I always am attracted to the weirdest and least behaved dogs.

Just a month ago we lost our last OG pack member: Phoebe the terrible, our yorkie. She was almost seventeen. Not all dogs are heart dogs but she watched tv in between my legs, slept on my husbands pillow, and was super feisty for such a little one. She has left a giant hole in my heart and I miss her so much. I still sometimes hear her little feet thump up the doggy stairs onto the bed, but then I realize she’s not here.

If you’re still here I know that was a lot, but that’s the backstory and this is our pack of now seven dogs. By the way if anyone ever tells you female dogs will soothe your males, nope, not true.