One Month Ago

One month ago today these two little Shih tzus came to live at "Funville." So today we celebrate a month of transition. Max is black; Mitzi is tan. They are both adorable.

When Chloe joined our family back on December 26th, we thought she'd need a furry friend to keep her company on some of the long days when we are both gone to work. But after the first month had past, I wasn't sure how that was going to happen, but my long days at the college had started and I was concerned about Chloe being home for hours by herself.

So when Mr. Fun came home from work on Thursday, February 3, to announce that he had been told that an older couple had just moved into a mobile home park in Orange County and could not keep both of their two dogs and were looking for someone who wanted the little male, I waited to see if Mr. Fun would follow through on the potential.

The next morning the phone rang and a friend wanted to know if we'd like to have the little male Shih tzu. We were an immediate "yes." A couple hours later we were in Orange County to get a dog and discovered that they wanted to give us both of their dogs.

These two, Max and Mitzi, were two years old this past December. One was born in northern California and one was born in southern California. They had grown-up on a 20-acre farm in Fresno before their owners moved to metropolitan Orange County a week before we met them.

Max and Mitzi had had one litter of four pups last spring. When we mentioned having them spayed and neutered, the man of the couple who owned them told us very matter-of-factly, "If you can eat 'em, you breed them!" and proceeded to explain how valuable their puppies would be because they are full-blooded Shih tzu. I do realize that the "eat em or breed em" is a farm concept, and as much as I'd like to live on a farm (I think), we don't. So having a litter of puppies here is way outside of my comfort zone.

When all of their things were packed-up, we loaded them into their little portable kennel/carriers and came home to introduce Chloe to these two new members of our family. At first we thought we had one too many pups. We didn't think we'd keep Max because we really wanted a female to keep Chloe company. We realized pretty quickly that Max and Mitzi were connected at the hip. He is lost without her.

This has been a month of serious contemplation. "What in the world are we doing with three dogs?" is the thought that continued to go through my thoughts.

Mitzi and Max were with us less than a week when Mitzi went into heat. Oh what fun! We had her scheduled for spay surgery, but the next couple days were more than interesting. Her surgery was on Monday, February 14th. Then on Friday the 18th, Max went to the vet for neuter surgery. Those two surgeries added to the drama, or was that trauma, at Funville, but we were gradually adjusting to being a family of three pups.

Chloe is still adjusting. She is absolutely the alpha dog and I think if she could have voted on this situation, she would have had to think long and hard about marking her ballot because she truly enjoys them, but she is also very jealous when one of them wants to snuggle with one of us. I think, though, she is making the transition.

Most of all, it has been deeply meaningful for me to watch Mr. Fun loving these two new ones and to watch him with all three of them. He was not raised around animals, so over the years he's gradually joined my belief that our pets, these guys, are not just animals, they are family. So we have three crates in the family room where they can stay when we are not home and three much smaller kennel/carriers upstairs in our master bedroom where they sleep at night.

This addition to our lives has added a serious amount of work, but the love, joy, laughter, and surprise has completely outweighed the work. Wednesday I took all three of them, Chloe, Mitzi, and Max, to the groomer for a bath and the people there just hugged me and hugged me. They knew how heart-broken we were when Bob dog's life reached its end this past June.

Somehow having all three of these furry little ones just feels right. Somewhere during these past 4-weeks I looked at Mr. Fun and said, "It took 3-dogs to fill the void that Bob dog left!" and you know, I think that's the truth. We'll never stop missing our Bob dog. We are, though, thoroughly enjoying these three.


Good night from "Dogville," oops, I mean "Funville"!
Rosie (& Mr. Fun, and Chloe, Mitzi, & Max