The Long and the Short of it. Or, What in the World Have We DONE??

After a year and a bit of wedded bliss, Dan I decided that we had enough love left over, to give some of it to another little furry creature.
Because a dozen cats (give or take a few,) just wasn't enough.
We needed a dog.

A cute little canine companion that we could cuddle with, take for walks, and who would lay adoringly at our feet while we watched TV.
You know... a Real Norman Rockwell scene, brought to glorious life.

Lucky for us, Dan's son's dog had recently given birth to puppies, so they brought the whole mess of them around for us to look at, and we got to take our pick of pickled puppies.
Ermmm.... I mean just puppies..

 The instant I saw the cutest little bundle of fur out of the bunch,  my heart just melted.  Mama dog was a smallish girl, and I was assured that daddy dog was a sort of smallish boy, so we just knew in our heart of hearts, that little Matilda was the one for us.

She was cute, and wiggly, and we got our faces well and truly bathed in sweet little doggie kisses.  And me and puppy breath go together like peanut butter and jelly.
Biscuits and gravy...
meat and potatoes....
Anyway, you get the drift.
We were made for each other.

Our lives together were now complete, and we were happy.

 Tilly when we first got her.

Until the first night.
I forgot that puppies poop.
A LOT.
Day and night.
And they also piddle, just for something to do.
They do that a lot too.

But Dan and I worked out a schedule, and it worked for us.
Every time one of us would get up a night to go to the toilet... we would take Tilly out for a walk.
Luckily for Tilly, Dan and I are both old folks.
Thanks to us and our old and  decrepit bladders, she got walked about every hour on the hour, all night long.

Time went on, and we knew that this was the best thing we had done together...
Except I think we both forgot (or overlooked, because our minds are deteriorating due to advanced age)  that puppies grow UP. 


The cute, sweet smelling puppy breath now has a tinge of nasty ol' cat-box to it, and anything left lying within the reach of those cute little tiny teeth was in danger of being chewed to smithereens by teeth that would make a T-Rex jealous.

And the cats?  I won't even go there.
Except to say that they now hate us.
(Except for Dude.  Dude loves his Tilly.   Even though it means he gets pounced on, and slobbered on on a regular basis.)

As time went on, (okay, so a matter of a mere 3 months)  Tilly turned into a bouncing behemoth.  She needs walks and more walks, and exercise on a constant basis, because she just has so much boundless energy, that it makes us tired just looking at her.

I read up on things, and most of the vets surveyed said that at 4-6 months, our cute little puppy would be approximately HALF the weight that she would be, when fully grown  - so with just our luck, we're looking at her being a 105+ pound bundle of bounding and boundless love.
Which is kind of like having invited a frisky Clydesdale horse to live in our house
.
And we did this willingly.

Tilly under the apple tree at 4 months

She loves life, she loves people, and she loves going to the park and sniffing anything and everything under the sun.

I mean, she really REALLY loves going to the park.

So much so, that every last skerrick of manners and training goes right out the window, and she drags us around like we're mere balls of fluff, while she smells puddles of deliciousness at the base of every tree and lamp post.  And candy wrappers. And the odd abandoned flip flop or used condom.

We're actually thinking of investing in roller blades, and about a million dollars worth of high-end extreme protective gear, so we don't have to hobble so fast and so painfully as we walk her.
If we had roller-blades, we could sort of whiz around like those folks on roller-blades at Venice Beach do, doing cute little swooping maneuvers with happy little smiles pasted to our faces, as we get towed along by a gorgeous trotting dog.

This shall be us.

Only with a million $$'s worth of protective gear.

But since we don't have the million dollars that it would take to buy enough protective gear to keep us from breaking a hip or two, my daughter-in-law Becky pointed out a cute little dog on facebook.  One that was looking for a forever home.  One that could be a companion to Tilly, and who could help Tilly get the exercise she needs... They would be able to chase each other merrily around the yard, they would both speak the same language, and  we and they kitties would be forever grateful for not being constantly bounced and pounced on.

So we got Haley.
Who looked in her picture to be a fully grown medium sized Lhasa Apso type dog.

But those  floor tiles were deceptive.. and Haley turned out to be a tiny little purebred Shih Tzu.
This wasn't exactly the dog we had imagined, but when we heard her story, we were helpless to do anything other than take her home with us.  We couldn't have lived with ourselves otherwise.

It seems that the woman we got her from had gotten her from the original breeder 2 years ago... and of course, because she had papers, the woman had big plans to breed her new little doggie, and sell the puppies... .

Unfortunately... when they found out that Haley was completely and permanently infertile, she was relegated to a puppy pen in the dark and dreary garage.  Obviously, she had had very little companionship and love during the 2 years she was with this family, so this poor little girl was STARVED for affection.
So we took her. 
And she's now ours.

 Haley the day we got her.

  

Haley after her trip to the beauty parlor yesterday.

She's really too tiny for Tilly to actually play with, but man... does she know how to growl and squeaky-bark, and gnash her teeth when Tilly gets too rambunctious!

I think it's gonna work out just fine...