I'm surprised I remembered the password to this thing.

And what have I been doing the past week?

Somehow, in the past week, this:



was joined by this:


Yes, friends, we adopted ANOTHER dog.

Well, actually, we're fostering him, just to make sure he works out.

(Also, because he's scheduled to have a little snippity-snip next week, kwim?)

I think he's going to. Work out, I mean. Poor Delta was so used to having a buddy, she was getting a bit lonely in the backyard. And she wasn't acting out, as such, but she WAS barking a good bit. And she DID escape from her pen twice on Sunday.

And so we just thought what the heck - two is just as much trouble as one, right? That's what people who are trying to get me to have another kid tell me, anyway.

Having these dogs is almost like having another kid, though! No, we aren't up all night, feeding every two hours - or changing diapers - or anything like that, but they're pretty time consuming all the same.

I realized one day this week that when you have animals to care for, there is no such thing as staying in your PJs all day and not leaving the house! I have to go outside and feed them each morning, and usually Jason comes along a little later to take them for a walk. Even though they're outside, we figure it's good for them, and for us, to get out and walk a couple times a day.

When Jason goes out of town this summer, I'm not sure what's going to happen to the whole "walking" thing - I'm not at all sure I can walk two dogs which weigh more than my kid, all by myself.

Just like kids, these two have very different personalities. Delta was obviously a pet. She is very social, and she loves to be with us. Her favorite thing in the world (besides tumping over her water bowl or playing in the water hose spray) is fetching a tennis ball. She could do it for hours!

Lucky - that's what we found out the other dog's name is - seems to be very different. He belonged to a member of our county's planning commission who passed away earlier this month. The widow is a cancer patient, and she was unable to care for his dogs so she asked the shelter to take them. We are surmising that he must've been mostly a "yard dog" and not had a lot of interaction with humans.

He doesn't like water, and he doesn't like riding in in the car - things Delta adores.

He does seem to have solved the barking problem - she barks a bit, and then she settles down. I was concerned about her being left alone all day, but I feel much better with Lucky back there. He hasn't been aggressive with her at all, besides getting, well, a little too friendly with her in the beginning. I was told that once he's, ahem, worked on, that shouldn't be much of an issue.

Anna Marie is beyond thrilled to have not one, but two dogs - and I've got to say, it isn't so bad. It's good for her, too, because she can go back there and get them out of the pen and play with them - and not spend so much time on that DS!

Hopefully all of us - the dogs and the humans - will adjust to our new reality soon, and they won't take up so much of our lives that we don't have a chance to do much else!