2022 Saturday — The Pups

Eleven years ago (February 2011) we were celebrating the arrival of Max and Mitzi. Two little two-year-old Shihtzu K9s that had just joined our family. Six weeks earlier little Chloe had joined the “Funville” family; we thought Chloe was enough. We weren’t actually planning to add anymore, but then we said “Yes!”

Today we are still rubbing our eyes at how that simple “Yes!” changed us. If we were going somewhere, we had three leashes that each needed to be hooked to a dog. We had three little sleep crates in our bedroom; three “day” crates downstairs for the hours we were at work; and three mouths to feed. In the car, we had to figure-out who would sit where; everyone wanted a window. Squeaky toys, soft blankets, and water bowls seemed to decorate every view. They all three loved to bark at the spa when it “bubbled awake” at start time every morning. These three have been crazy fun and we’ve never regretted saying “Yes!” to these K9s.

Vacationing, though, came with the added expense of kenneling three dogs. Early in this experience of three pups and two humans, we did a weekend get-a-way for two humans to Laguna Beach. That meant three K9s had to be kenneled. We spent more bucks to kennel the three pups than to hotel the two humans. That was when I made the innocent statement “We need to buy a beach house so we can just all vacation together.” Beach is always where we headed for time out, for time away, for play time. I was born with sand between my toes; my grandparents lived at the beach. Mr. Fun spent his teenage years borrowing his friends surfboards so he could be on the water.

We started casually looking from San Diego to Monterey for a beach house with the three pups cheering us on from the backseat.

If Ventura had allowed dogs on the beach, that would have been the bulls-eye on our target. But their “No dogs on the Sand!” halted our interest.

During a 12-month search we looked at places that were out-of-our-financial-reach, mobile homes, fixer uppers, and anything that seemed the slightest bit possible (which was not much). A funny thing happened during the summer of 2012. The real estate market dropped to the lowest it had been in years and years. Before the year was over Chloe, Max, and Mitzi were the proud owners of a “fixer-upper” on California’s Central Coast in a little dog friendly town, and they invited us to join them. The shack we purchased had been For Sale for 18 months and the price had been reduced $160,000 in that time.

Our caramel colored Mitzi is now 13 years old; the past several months she has gone deaf and is struggling with some tough health issues. She follows me wherever I go.

A number of months ago, Mitzi decided she was no longer going to stay in her crate when we are not home and she was not going to sleep in her crate. After much pleading we gave up. So at night she now sleeps on the foot of our bed or on the ottoman at the end of our bed.

Twenty-two months ago we said “good-bye” to Max due to liver disease (we still cry). Chloe is an 11 ½ year old healthy mutt, she still wonders where the other two K9s came from and still thinks that someday Mitzi will go back to her real owners so Chloe will be the Queen Bee or I should say “pup” again.

But today we celebrate the three K9s who changed our lives. We have a multitude of fabulous experiences and memories with the three pups, and a zillion photos. James Taylor words, “Build it behind your eyes, carry it in your heart” is what we do with these K9s.

Good night,
Rosie (& Mr. Fun), aka Carol
and Chloe & Mitzi too!