We currently have Seven dogs around the house. 7 dogs! Sigh.
They are under, over, around, loud, noisy, loveable, messy, playing, fighting, barking, eating, drinking, and digging, and doing something else I can't think of. Oh yes, sleeping.
One black Lab, two beagles, and four dachsunds. Seems like alot, Yea. Soft brain, big heart, I guess.
The Lab is around 10 years old, a pure bred we got for free. My favorite. His name is Muggsy. Papers and everything. No, not those kind of papers.
My younger daughter worked as a volunteer at an animal shelter. One day she brought home a beagle, because of a approaching hurricane. We kept her because the reasoning being it would be company for the Lab.
Turned out, he could care less. My son named her Skippy . Again my daughter brought home another beagle, my son named her Wilma after the hurricane. Thankfully, she stopped working at the shelter. After a break in time period, fighting, teeth baring, growling, they now sleep next to each other. The Lab ignores them, except during mating season, where he hopes love will bloom, but alas, not with fixed dogs.
My older daughter came back home to live , came with two dachsunds. Precious the female, Murphy the male, not related to any world disaster.
Last Christmas, mr. and mrs. dachsund were to have puppies. She went into labor Christmas night, but things did not gow well. She was rushed to the vet to have a c-section set to have five pups, quite alot for such a small dog.
One pup was dead, and the mother and one pup were not doing well. Three puppies (all males) were fine. Sad news, the mom and the one pup died during the night.
Alot of tears followed. But there was much work to be done.
Luckily, the whole family was home for the holidays. The three pups had to be bottle fed once every 45 minutes for about a week or they would die. The wife and daughters did most of the work, taking turns sleeping and feeding.
The dogs that is. After awhile I got involved. You also had to stimulate the dogs to poop. Oh what fun. Many a shirt got stained. I smelled like dog formula at work, my clothes smelled like the puppies. What fun.
The smallest pup developed a throat infection, couldn't sleep, couldn't eat. If it lost too much weight, it would die. I would squirt drops into the mouth and hold it closed to force it to swallow. A trip to the vet saved him
Time marches on. Almost 4 months later, all seem healthy, the puppies are almost the same size of the father which now has the nick name Papa Murph (Smurf), and they are all sleeping on each other.
The Lab is still by himself, waiting for me to throw his beloved frisbee, and maybe take a dip in the pool. The beagles are sleeping, thinking of what to eat, and plotting to take over the world.
Meanwhile, it is time to clean the yard, where one would wonder if we have horses or elephants, or that the circus came to town and left a yard of presents.
2 comments:
When someone rings the doorbell do the dogs all bark? We have one dog - and he barks so loudly.
Oh what a lot of work. Poo patrol - not a job I enjoy at all.
We don't have a doorbell, don't need one. In the front of the house we have a circular driveway. When a car pulls up the dogs go crazy. When people walk by, the dogs go crazy, When dogs walk by, well you get the idea. When I walk in Papa Murph barks like he has never seen me before. Very protective of the wife and daughters. That part does get old.
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