Yesterday I began the tale of the Peters’ pets. We left off with the passing of Rylee, and the acquisition of Hazel, the lone cat in a house full of dogs. However, once Rylee left us, there were no dogs in our family. Now Cindy and I had decided long ago that we would always have two dogs, first because we love dogs and would surround ourselves with them if we could, but also because we thought it was right that the dogs have each other to play with in our absence. However, with the memory of both Jessica and Rylee still so fresh, we weren’t sure if we would ever get another dog again.
For those of you that have never had a dog, I don’t think I have the words to describe how much love they can bring to your world. And those of you lucky enough to have been dog owners, I think you already know what I mean. And as much as we needed that void filled, neither Cindy or I knew if we could stand that heartbreak that came with losing another pet. We knew it would probably be a long time before we were ready to face that possibility again.
As it turns out, it wasn’t that long after all. In October of 1999, about six weeks after Rylee’s death, we found ourselves in San Luis Obispo on a Saturday doing some early Christmas shopping. And for some reason, we found ourselves near Animal Services, not that we should have been, as Animal Services is in a pretty isolated part of town. “Oh, we’ll just look” we told ourselves, knowing damn well that we were both ready to bring a new puppy into our home.
And we had a pretty specific idea of what we wanted – a puppy, the breed didn’t matter too much (actually a mutt was preferred) and a smaller dog. Not too small, but a nice terrier/schnauzer size. As anyone who has looked for a dog at the pound can tell you, puppies are not easy to find. They go out almost as fast as they come in, and yet the older dogs, dogs with just as much love to give, often don’t get a second look. I wish I could tell you that I was the one who spotted Aud
rey, but that was Cindy. While not a puppy, they said that they estimated that she was around six months old. They had to estimate because they had no history on Audrey – she was merely dropped off in the middle of the night. She also wasn’t the small dog we were looking for. A Queensland/Australian Sheppard mix, she was larger than what we were looking for. But one look in her eyes told us that this was the dog for us. She was friendly and loving, but flinched and often growled if you pet her hindquarters. It was obvious that she had been abused. There was one other sign that Audrey was the right dog – today was Audrey’s last day to be adopted. If no one claimed her today, there wouldn’t be a tomorrow.
I should note that Audrey’s name when we adopted her wasn’t Audrey. Actually she didn’t have a name at the pound, but my daughter decided to name her “Cleo” after one of her best friends. I thought it was a little creepy naming a dog after your friend, but that’s not why we didn’t keep the name. We always knew that it wasn’t the right name for her. She had (and has) a majestic beauty and dignified look about her, and for some reason her beauty and black and white coloring reminded me of Audrey Hepburn, and how in her black and white portraits she displays such class while also a down-to-earth beauty. Audrey it was.
Now like I said, we always said we wanted two dogs, but with Audrey and Hazel, we knew there wasn’t a need to hurry. Not that Audrey and Hazel got along. Hazel was used to being the queen bee in the house, and here comes this puppy whose idea of playfulness was a little bit different then the cats. Actually, “puppy” is probably not the right word to use, as the vet informed us that the six month old dog that we adopted was probably closer to eighteen months old. Anyhow, they both pretty much kept to themselves, and if Hazel crossed the line, Audrey let her know it.
About seven months went by without the discussion of adding another dog to the roost. Oh, we still knew that we were going to, but I think that we secretly felt that the longer we took, the more distance between the dogs in years, and the lesser the chance we would lose both dogs in a short time, as we had with Jessica and Rylee. We made a couple more trips to the pound, and while there were always wonderful dogs there, we just didn’t connect with any.
Then in early July of 2000, I was shopping at the drug store and saw a poster – Chihuahua Poodle Puppies For Sale. If you had asked me prior to this moment what type of dog I would like, I doubt that the words “Chihuahua” or “Poodle” would have come to mind. And yet I was oddly drawn to the poster, and I just had to know what a Chihuahua Poodle puppy looked like.
Well, the good news is they look like neither. They were among the cutest dogs we had ever seen, and as soon as we saw them we knew that we had found our second dog. The hardest part was choosing which dog. There were five or six to choose from, and they were all adorable. We decided to let Madison choose, and she choose the tan one, a little dog the owners had named “Bonnie”. The only problem was that the dogs weren’t old enough to leave their mother yet, and we had to wait a couple of weeks before we could bring her home. We also decided that since we had basically vetoed Madison’s naming of Audrey, we would let her name this one. We knew that if we gave the honor to my son, who was heavily into “Pokeman” at the time, we would end up with a name we would al regret later. One of Madison’s favorite T.V. shows at the time was a Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen show in which their character’s names were Riley and Chloe. So to honor Maddie’s first dog Rylee, we decided to name this one Chloe.
It was also fitting that the day we were to pick Chloe up was Madison’s 4th birthday, and it was with great anticipation that we all piled in the car and went to pick up our new family member. While the kids were playing with Chloe and her sisters, Debbie the breeder pulled us off to the side. “I have some bad news” she said, and our hearts sank. Oh no, not today, not on Madison’s birthday. It seems that Debbie was afraid that Chloe, the dog we had picked, was deaf. She had made an appointment to have the vet check her out, but that had not taken place yet. It seems she was suspicious because Chloe didn’t respond to being called or other noises, and basically just followed the other dogs.
What would we do? We certainly didn’t want to disappoint the kids, but what challenges would a deaf dog bring? Still uncertain, we asked Debbie the all important question: “If we don’t take her, what will happen to her?” Debbie explained that she would probably “bu
ndle” Chloe with another dog, that she would adopt her out to someone that wanted two dogs. That way Chloe would have a family member to basically direct her and watch out for her.
And that my friends is how we ended up with Chloe AND Meg. Not wanting to risk a worse fate befalling Chloe, we adopted her along with her sister Meg. And we decided that it would only be fair to let Blake have a shot at naming Meg, and after days of thought, he decided that Meg – the name she came with – was the right name for her. Oh, and if you’re wondering about Chloe, she’s fine – not deaf at all, just stubborn.
And that my friends is how our not so little family came to be. And who knows, there might be another addition soon – Madison’s friends cat just had kittens, and Christmas is coming.
For those of you that have never had a dog, I don’t think I have the words to describe how much love they can bring to your world. And those of you lucky enough to have been dog owners, I think you already know what I mean. And as much as we needed that void filled, neither Cindy or I knew if we could stand that heartbreak that came with losing another pet. We knew it would probably be a long time before we were ready to face that possibility again.
As it turns out, it wasn’t that long after all. In October of 1999, about six weeks after Rylee’s death, we found ourselves in San Luis Obispo on a Saturday doing some early Christmas shopping. And for some reason, we found ourselves near Animal Services, not that we should have been, as Animal Services is in a pretty isolated part of town. “Oh, we’ll just look” we told ourselves, knowing damn well that we were both ready to bring a new puppy into our home.
And we had a pretty specific idea of what we wanted – a puppy, the breed didn’t matter too much (actually a mutt was preferred) and a smaller dog. Not too small, but a nice terrier/schnauzer size. As anyone who has looked for a dog at the pound can tell you, puppies are not easy to find. They go out almost as fast as they come in, and yet the older dogs, dogs with just as much love to give, often don’t get a second look. I wish I could tell you that I was the one who spotted Aud
rey, but that was Cindy. While not a puppy, they said that they estimated that she was around six months old. They had to estimate because they had no history on Audrey – she was merely dropped off in the middle of the night. She also wasn’t the small dog we were looking for. A Queensland/Australian Sheppard mix, she was larger than what we were looking for. But one look in her eyes told us that this was the dog for us. She was friendly and loving, but flinched and often growled if you pet her hindquarters. It was obvious that she had been abused. There was one other sign that Audrey was the right dog – today was Audrey’s last day to be adopted. If no one claimed her today, there wouldn’t be a tomorrow.
I should note that Audrey’s name when we adopted her wasn’t Audrey. Actually she didn’t have a name at the pound, but my daughter decided to name her “Cleo” after one of her best friends. I thought it was a little creepy naming a dog after your friend, but that’s not why we didn’t keep the name. We always knew that it wasn’t the right name for her. She had (and has) a majestic beauty and dignified look about her, and for some reason her beauty and black and white coloring reminded me of Audrey Hepburn, and how in her black and white portraits she displays such class while also a down-to-earth beauty. Audrey it was.
Now like I said, we always said we wanted two dogs, but with Audrey and Hazel, we knew there wasn’t a need to hurry. Not that Audrey and Hazel got along. Hazel was used to being the queen bee in the house, and here comes this puppy whose idea of playfulness was a little bit different then the cats. Actually, “puppy” is probably not the right word to use, as the vet informed us that the six month old dog that we adopted was probably closer to eighteen months old. Anyhow, they both pretty much kept to themselves, and if Hazel crossed the line, Audrey let her know it.
About seven months went by without the discussion of adding another dog to the roost. Oh, we still knew that we were going to, but I think that we secretly felt that the longer we took, the more distance between the dogs in years, and the lesser the chance we would lose both dogs in a short time, as we had with Jessica and Rylee. We made a couple more trips to the pound, and while there were always wonderful dogs there, we just didn’t connect with any.
Then in early July of 2000, I was shopping at the drug store and saw a poster – Chihuahua Poodle Puppies For Sale. If you had asked me prior to this moment what type of dog I would like, I doubt that the words “Chihuahua” or “Poodle” would have come to mind. And yet I was oddly drawn to the poster, and I just had to know what a Chihuahua Poodle puppy looked like.
Well, the good news is they look like neither. They were among the cutest dogs we had ever seen, and as soon as we saw them we knew that we had found our second dog. The hardest part was choosing which dog. There were five or six to choose from, and they were all adorable. We decided to let Madison choose, and she choose the tan one, a little dog the owners had named “Bonnie”. The only problem was that the dogs weren’t old enough to leave their mother yet, and we had to wait a couple of weeks before we could bring her home. We also decided that since we had basically vetoed Madison’s naming of Audrey, we would let her name this one. We knew that if we gave the honor to my son, who was heavily into “Pokeman” at the time, we would end up with a name we would al regret later. One of Madison’s favorite T.V. shows at the time was a Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen show in which their character’s names were Riley and Chloe. So to honor Maddie’s first dog Rylee, we decided to name this one Chloe.
It was also fitting that the day we were to pick Chloe up was Madison’s 4th birthday, and it was with great anticipation that we all piled in the car and went to pick up our new family member. While the kids were playing with Chloe and her sisters, Debbie the breeder pulled us off to the side. “I have some bad news” she said, and our hearts sank. Oh no, not today, not on Madison’s birthday. It seems that Debbie was afraid that Chloe, the dog we had picked, was deaf. She had made an appointment to have the vet check her out, but that had not taken place yet. It seems she was suspicious because Chloe didn’t respond to being called or other noises, and basically just followed the other dogs.
What would we do? We certainly didn’t want to disappoint the kids, but what challenges would a deaf dog bring? Still uncertain, we asked Debbie the all important question: “If we don’t take her, what will happen to her?” Debbie explained that she would probably “bu
ndle” Chloe with another dog, that she would adopt her out to someone that wanted two dogs. That way Chloe would have a family member to basically direct her and watch out for her.And that my friends is how we ended up with Chloe AND Meg. Not wanting to risk a worse fate befalling Chloe, we adopted her along with her sister Meg. And we decided that it would only be fair to let Blake have a shot at naming Meg, and after days of thought, he decided that Meg – the name she came with – was the right name for her. Oh, and if you’re wondering about Chloe, she’s fine – not deaf at all, just stubborn.
And that my friends is how our not so little family came to be. And who knows, there might be another addition soon – Madison’s friends cat just had kittens, and Christmas is coming.
My goal in life is to be as good of a person my dog already thinks I am. ~Author Unknown
Dogs' lives are too short. Their only fault, really. ~Agnes Sligh Turnbull
2 comments:
Wow... what a brood. Great tale- or should I say tail?
Totally off topic- I see Glenn Beck on your sidebar. We are going to see his Christmas Show in December. I can't wait. We saw his MidLife Crisis tour and loved it. He is just so logical- gotta love him.
Jody, I'm a fairly new listener to Glenn. He's on from 6 to 9 in the morning here, so I don't get to hear him on the radio often, but I try to catch him on Headline News whenever possible.
I first heard of Beck this summer when I was back in Iowa, and one of my liberal friends was ranting about this "horrible" guy on the radio, so of course I had to tune in and I was hooked. If this is what they consider horrible, they obviously haven't listened to Air America.
Have a great time at the Christmas Show.
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