Introducing our Newest Addition!!

Last Sunday we headed out for a family afternoon of parks and fun. Somehow we ended up at the local SPCA "just to look".

We walked in and the very first dog I saw was Abbey. Her eyes were so sad and she looked so very out of place. The way her little puppy dog face lit up when she saw us was practically begging us to take her home.

Next thing you know we're in an adoption room to see how she responds to the kids. Kevin and Matthew are looking at her with full on throbbing hearts in their eyes and I realized there was no way we were leaving without her.

I was nervous about bringing her home considering the whole Ivy fiasco, but Abbey has been AMAZING. I'm seriously never getting a puppy again. Abbey is potty trained, fetches, comes when she's called, sits, heels, can go all night without needing to pee etc. She is so well behaved and so very sweet. Her first day here she never stopped wagging her tail.

We have dubbed her Abbey Twinkletoes Blue. Kevin wanted her to be Abbey. Matthew suggested Twinkletoes and Phoebe has called the new pup, "Blue my Blue" from day one. The jury is still out as to whether Blue is a reference to Blues Clues or if Phoebe is channeling Will Ferrell ala Old School style.

We are so utterly smitten with Abbey it's on the verge of ridiculous.

New Home for Ivy...

I found a kick arse home for Ivy!!!!!!!!

They're perfect! It makes me wish I had more dogs to give them! ;0)
They are a pair of retired PE teachers who live in Oregon on ten acres. The husband has started up a small paper mill business after he retired. They are crazy active and love to exercise. They hike all the time and the husband is a big runner. They go camping all the time in the summer and they will spoil Ivy rotten. They are familiar with German sheperds/Labs. In general I couldn't ask for anything more for her.

I keep getting sad about saying goodbye to Ivy tonight.... I've even almost cried a couple times. But then Ivy will jump on one of the kids or will try to hurtle herself at the tree and I think to myself- "Oh yeah... this is why she needs to go...."

I will miss her. I really will. If she had been a year or two older I think things would have worked out very differently. Maybe in another couple years we'll revisit the idea of getting a dog.... but for the time being the kids are really much to young to handle such a wild pup.

It's ridiculous that I have to say it....

Dear General Public/ People interested in Ivy-

Learn to friggin write.

If you send me an email asking for more information about my dog using text speak typing instead of a decent note I am going to skip over your application. Simple as that. I don't want to be deciphering your messages of "im ht u up bout dg hw mch mny" Seriously- I'm not going to waste my time.

If you can't spell, capitalize or even add periods to your letter- I will not be letting you come near my dog let alone let you give her a new home. My dog is smart and I will not allow her to be wasted on idiotic nincompoop's like you.

I find it hard to imagine that you ignorant arse's will ever be to hold down a job or even be successfully hired without some basic understandings of the English language. Seriously people- do yourself a favor and work on your English writing skills before you ever even think about being able to support a dog.

Go Wank Up a Hill,

Me aka Ivy's owner

Ivy the pup...

We're going to be trying to find Ivy a new home. Things have just been too difficult with her. Between her and the kids my days are eaten up and away. She's a great dog and I love her very much. This has been an extremely heart wrenching decision for me.

I've been spending a lot of my time training and her and just trying to keeping her occupied but it's just not working out. She's play nipped and jumped at Matty and Elijah enough times where they are scared of her. The boys won't get off the bed if she's in the house. They're terrified to go out in the back yard. I wrestled Matty out there the other day and he barricaded himself in the playhouse. As a result of trying to keep away from the dog they're watching twice as much tv as usual because they can't just go play outside or even sit on the ground.

I'm constantly trying to keep the puppy off of Phoebe. Phoebe actually loves the dog but Ivy knocks her over all the time and escalates from loving to verge of dangerous in 2.5 seconds and I'm getting worn out from keeping them apart all the time.

On Monday we had an ugly incident occur at the park which was the nail in the coffin for me. We were playing quite nicely when Ivy bounds up and jumps on Phoebe. The force of this jump knocks Phoebe over and they land on a sandy patch that gave way to a steep decline with an exposed storm drain with a ten- fifteen foot drop inside. I literally had to dive down into the drain in order to catch Phoebe up before she hit and and toss her towards a safe landing space while I hit the storm drain myself. All the while the puppy still jumping all over me and Phoebe.

Obviously I was big enough where the drain wouldn't have been even remotely dangerous for me but for a little tike like Phoebe, it could have been very scary and dangerous if she fell into the drain. I'm very lucky that I was standing there at that exact second rather than even a couple extra feet away.

Almost every time we take the dog out with us to parks or the beach I feel stressed out and disaster always seems to find us. Half of the time I'm prying Ivy off of Phoebe and the other half of the time they're simply all running in different directions and I don't have enough arms to reign them all in at once. If I was a Hindu goddess or an octopus this wouldn't be such an issue.

I love Ivy and I change my mind about finding her a new home dozens of times a day..... but I really do think this will be best for everyone in the end.

Gross, gross, grodie, gross....

So this morning my cute little Phoebe Bird had a slightly red bottom so I decided to let her air it out a bit before I dressed her. I left the room to go to the bathroom and it took me all of 5 minutes. I return to see that Phoebe had squatted in the hallway and left a big poopy turd.



I grabbed the paper towels and disenfectant spray just in time to see the puppy wolf down Phoebe's poop in a single gulp.

Grodie, Gross, Gross, Grodie.....Blech.

Crazy disgusting. I know dogs will on occasion eat their own poop but to eat baby poop that quite obviously had a load of corn and beans in it grosses me out to a whole new level of grodied out. Seriously- Ugh.

Puppy Dog Tales.... Yes Pun intended ;0)

We have become the proud owners of a German Shepherd/ lab puppy. She's darling and we've fallen head over heels in love with her. Doodle and Bug are enamored. Even Phoebe is getting in on the action and starting to say "doggy" in her own growly baby way.

To make the story short of how we acquired this new little member of the family, an old friend of mine from Youth Group days called asking if we would be interested in taking in her puppy since her parents were less than thrilled with the current baby/puppy/tons of people in the house arrangement.

Matty has been begging for a puppy and Kevin has been trying to get me to warm up to having a dog for well over a year and I finally have caved and I'm delighted that I did. This puppy is awesome. She is such a people dog. She's attached to me like glue. It's crazy sweet. She comes when I call and already fetches. I'm going to be signing her up for dog training classes next week. She's super smart and I can tell that she has the makings of an awesome family dog.

Potty training her has been a bit tricky but so far she seems to be a fast learner and is already doing a hundred times better about going to the bathroom outside instead of inside.

I sincerely am delighted to have her. Currently her name is still pending....