Merry Christmas

Someone once said, "Never work with children or animals"....

We begin our photo shoot....

Remy would rather eat the hat than wear it.

Then the Tug of War started

And the wrestling match begins....

Trying again...if I can just get Remy to sit still...wait a minute...what's the good son doing? Chewing his hat while I'm distracted by Devil Dog!

If I eat the hat, the photo shoot ends!

Uh oh...coal in your stocking this year, Remy!

Then we moved outside....Rufus is staying still...Remy not so much.

Rufus still staying in position...Remy about to leap up at the camera

OK..Rufus posing with his hat....and Remy ('nough said)


Wishing you a joyous Christmas season filled with love and special memories. 

Rufus Comes Home

We're always late...always! It's impossible for us to be on time..but you can bet we were on time on February 7, 2008. That was Rufus Day...the day we finally brought our new puppy home. The day I hoped the house would stop feeling cold and empty.

We arrived at Vicki's promptly at 11. We were there at exactly 11 a.m. because we had actually arrived at 10:30 and parked down the road, waiting until the designated time. We were pathetic! I tried to appear calm and cool but I'm pretty sure Vicki saw through the act...I was Jello on the inside. We sat in her living room as she went through a binder full of information with us. Vaccination schedules, food options, puppy training classes. I didn't hear any of it! My brain kept screaming..."Uh huh...very nice...GO GET OUR PUPPY". Finally after what seemed like hours, Vicki said..."So I'll go get him"...."What did she say," I thought, "Go get him?" Finally!!! Steve and I stood together in silence...waiting. I heard Vicki's footsteps on the wooden stairs as she came back upstairs. The basement door opened...a light shone from the heavens and angels sang, Hallelujah! There he was..our Rufus....the light coloured puppy (remember in yesterday's post I said I didn't want the light puppy?)...did I care at that moment? No! He was the most beautiful sight in the world to me Vicki walked over and handed him to me. I gathered him in my arms and held him tight, drinking in that luscious puppy smell. I buried my face in his neck and I cried. He pulled away and looked right into my eyes...we connected at that very second, my Rufus and I. He knew I needed him. He knew he had a job to do. He saw a heart that had been broken and he knew he had to mend it. There right on the spot, I felt my heart healing..the pieces that had been shattered by the loss of Shamaya were fitting themselves back together. I looked at Steve and he had tears in his eyes....he knew what had just happened. He knew he had helped to put the joy back in my heart. I will be forever grateful to my husband for putting my needs over his own fear of loving and losing yet another friend. He knew he would have to go through that pain again some time in the distant future when we lay Rufus to rest but he was willing to do it all again so I could have a dog. That's love, folks!

On the drive home Rufus looked out the window and watched as his big new world zoomed past him.  Finally we arrived home..and a new chapter of our lives began. The chapter I like to call "The Golden Years"...get it? Within minutes of arriving home with Rufus we noticed something changed...the house warmed up. It was filled with sounds and smells of puppy again...it was filled with puppy love!

And they called it...Puppy Love

Rufus becomes Rufus

It was a long eight weeks to have to wait until we could bring Rufus home. We did get to visit the puppies twice...but oh my, twice was not enough!! I would have been much happier with daily visits..but the two visits we had were wonderful. We saw the puppies when they were three weeks old and again when they were five weeks old. They were so warm and soft and cuddly. We had no idea which puppy was going to be Rufus when we visited them, so we cuddled them all.  Our breeder gives potential puppy parents a questionnaire to fill out and she does temperament tests on the pups before they go to their new homes.  Based on answers and puppy personality, she then matches the puppy and the parents she feels would be best together. I'm glad Vicki handles placing puppies this way...I couldn't have chosen one over the others. I noticed two of the boys were darker than the other one and I made a mental note to myself that I hoped we didn't get the lighter one because I liked the darker colour. Gotcha' Day was set for February 7th and we were to arrive at 11 a.m. On the Thursday before we were to go pick Rufus up, we received a phone call from Vicki. She had some news...uh oh!  She had noticed the puppy she really felt would be the best match for us sometimes had trouble getting his back legs under him to stand up on all fours. He "swam" a lot as he struggled to get up. She had taken him to a specialist that day to find out why and had been told that one of the bones in his rear right leg was a fraction shorter than the same bone in the left leg. The vet believed it would correct itself as he grew up but if it didn't there was a surgery that could be done when he was older. Then came the million dollar question...did we want to take a chance it would correct itself, or take one of the other puppies? Since we were the first to reserve a male, we got first "right of refusal". I hung up the phone and went to tell Steve what Vicki had said...and I prayed. I knew vet bills could be astronomical..did we really want to start off with a puppy that was less than perfect from the beginning? We decided in 30 seconds...we trusted Vicki's judgment...if she thought he was the right puppy for us, we would take our chances. Deep down we knew he'd be fine..we just knew.  I called Vicki back, told her we'd go with "Gimpy" and she promised to send a picture within a few minutes. Now it's time for you all to go.....awwwww! I checked my email a few minutes and this is what I found....

Can you guess which one is Rufus?

Happy Birthday My Sweet Rufus

On November 9, 2008 our Malamute girl Shamaya passed away suddenly at the age of ten years. She had a tumor on her spleen that ruptured...we had no clue whatsoever what had been brewing in her body. I was awakened at 5:30 a.m. on that Sunday morning to her yelping, struggling to stand up and by 9 a.m. we were standing in the vet's office being told she was dying and there was nothing that could be done. I remember staring at our vet in disbelief...he had to be wrong...it couldn't be....she was fine yesterday...how can this be? I wanted to run out of the vet's office...take Shamaya and run home...I wanted to scream..I wanted to smack the messenger! I wanted to be angry...instead I bent over my girl lying on the table and I looked into her eyes. She was ready to go...her life was slowly slipping away. As the two people who loved her most we helped her across the Rainbow Bridge. I remember driving home with Steve..both of us crying. He told me he didn't ever want another dog. "We've been through this so many times...I can't lose anymore friends," he said through tears. My heart broke into a million pieces...not have a dog??? I've always had a dog. My parents raised German Shepherds...we had dogs ever since I was 5 years old. When Steve and I got married, we talked about having a dog as soon as we could afford one. My parents gave us our first wonderful dog, Bear when Little Darling Number Two was three months old and we had at least one dog from that day on. Not have a dog???? Dogs are like air to me...I had to have a dog...but I couldn't force things. I knew I had to give him time to heal from the devastation of losing Shamaya. I prayed it wouldn't take him long to heal and change his mind. We went home that day, dogless and we lived dogless for a week. The house felt cold and empty. There was no dog hair to vacuum, no muddy footprints to wash off the floor...no sweet white face waiting at the window when we came home...no warm neck to snuggle when the snow started falling. A week after we lost Shamaya, I started dropping hints that maybe we could think about getting a puppy...just think. Not to replace Shamaya, we could never do that, but to help fill the hole that was left in our hearts. Steve was reluctant but he said, "Maybe we could look"...those were the words I had been praying for...."look"... I knew what that meant!!  Our sons claimed Golden Retrievers were the quintessential "old person dog" so we figured since we were now entering that "old person decade", it was time to consider this breed. I started researching Golden breeders and came across one site that caught my attention. The breeder seemed educated, knowledgeable and caring....and then I saw the picture of Neo (aka Big Daddy). Neo was by far the handsomest boy I had ever laid eyes on...and he had sired a litter that was due to be born in a few weeks. I showed Steve the pictures on Vicki's site and he said, "Well we could go see her and meet the dogs"....that was all I needed. I made an appointment and the following weekend we sat in Vicki's living room surrounded by Goldens...with Neo leading the pack in welcoming us. I was in love. That day was intended to be a "gathering information day"...we left having given Vicki a deposit for a male puppy out the of the expected litter. Now we just had to wait and see if in fact mom, Eva had a male puppy. We decided on a name before we even knew our puppy had been born. His registered name would be Animation's I Have a Dream.....and his call name would be Rufus. Three weeks later while Christmas shopping on December 13th we received an email on Steve's Blackberry. The subject line read..."Puppies have arrived". Steve handed me the Blackberry so I could read the message...."Three boys....", that's all I remember seeing...THREE BOYS.  Our Rufus had arrived.

**To be continued

Have you checked your toilet today?

Someone in this house is in cahoots with a plumber. When the kids were little and Fisher Price people ended up jammed in the toilet we knew who to blame. The day Steve had to lift the toilet off the floor to remove half a pound of cheese and a bunch of drywall screws from the plumbing system, we knew the culprit was about 2 1/2 feet tall, had dark brown hair, brown eyes and spoke with a New York accent ("I like to fwush caws in da terlit")..Little Darling Number One had a thing for toilets. Fast forward to modern day....within the past couple weeks I have found a slipper, a Nylabone and the Baby Jesus in the toilet. Since the human boys who still live at home are at work during the day and Steve travels every week, I had narrowed the culprit list down to two. Yesterday the perp (I watch too many crime shows) was revealed when I caught Remy red pawed dropping a large pine cone into the toilet. Thankfully I saw it before the toilet was flushed, thus averting the need for a plumber with Steve being away this week. The new rule in our house is the toilet lid must be down at all times....that should work...until Remy figures out how to lift it up.

What's YOUR favourite popsicle flavour?

I stood at the kitchen sink, sipping my coffee and watching the boys play in the snow in the backyard this morning. I smiled as I watched them leap around...tails wagging furiously. I noticed Rufus biting at Remy's face and realized Remy had a ball in his mouth that was actually the object of Rufus' desire. Remy took off at breakneck speed across the yard with Rufus in hot pursuit. Rufus caught up, rolled Remy in the snow and grabbed the ball...wait a minute.."When did we acquire a brown ball?" I thought. Uh oh...what did he have...was it a rock, a piece of charcoal out of the BBQ? These questions resulted in the need for closer inspection on my part. I donned the big sized 13 boots that Steve had left parked at the back door and shuffled out into the deep snow. As I approached, Rufus stuck his butt in the air, still holding the prize in his mouth, then ran towards me...just short of my feet he shot to one side and took off with Remy following him. They flew around the yard and ignored my "DROP IT" and "COME" commands! Rufus eventually stumbled and dropped the ball...Remy scooped it up and started tossing it in the air and catching it as he trotted around the yard. As he passed by me, he tossed it again and I realized it wasn't a ball...nor was it a rock or a piece of charcoal...it was a poopsicle! Frozen pieces of dog poop are magical treats for our boys. I usually go on Poop Patrol as soon as one of them goes but in the winter when the wind is howling and the snow is blowing, I have been known to leave it for a few hours and go out and pick up several at a time. Rufus discovered the frozen poop delicacy last winter and has taught his little brother well. Remy was so happy carrying that frozen turd around in his mouth...I didn't have the heart to make him give it up. So I let him keep it and came back in the house...reminding myself to brush their teeth when they came in! Note to anyone visiting out house this winter....it might be a good idea not to let the boys kiss you ;)

Who Needs Sex Toys?

This morning started off like every other morning...I got up before the birds to let the boys out and get their breakfast ready. While they ate, I put the coffee on and fired up my trusty laptop so I could check my emails. Suddenly from upstairs came a blood curdling scream. I bolted upstairs not sure what I'd find once I got there! As I rounded the corner into our bedroom I saw Steve sitting up in bed holding a dustpan. A dustpan you ask? Yes a dustpan! Apparently he had rolled over onto the sharp edge and impaled himself. Why would normal, sane people sleep with a dustpan in their bed? WE don't...Remy does...he likes to hide his toys in our bed. We often find his favourite stuffed monkey in there, or his bones...the odd antler has turned up between the sheets..but today was the first time he put the dustpan in there. Along with the dustpan were two half chewed, smelly old bones and a spoon. Now I ask you people...who needs sex toys???