'Until One Has Loved an Animal, Part of Their Soul Remains Unawakened'

Our pups are now 3,4 and 6-years old…  Yes 4, pretty amazing for people who never had or really wanted pets.  I always liked animals, but really didn’t want one of my own.  Perhaps I just realized that I wasn’t in a place or ready to take care of them yet and my husband was allergic to everything with fur and feathers.   So when our daughter was young we gave in starting with hamsters, mice, rats, geckos, lizards, fish, turtles… and then birds.  Then our daughter came home with a dog while she was working part-time at a pet store, the summer after her first year of college.  She was supposed to be earning a little pocket money for the next year. Instead she pretty much spent all she earned and came home with a papered Chihuahua… who became our Angel.

Baby Angel

My husband said, “no way!” Our daughter was going back to the dorms and he was allergic, so took Angel right back to the store.  They wouldn’t take her back because our daughter had signed the contract and they had given up a full paid sale to let her buy Angel at the employee discount, less than half of what they had had an actual customer for.  And of course, our daughter went back to school and the dorms, with Angel in tow insisting she could sneak her in and keep her there. Less than an hour after her arrival at school with her 4-legged roommate, we were on our way to pick Angel up.  My husband went through 18-months of allergy shots after that so we could keep her.

A year later our daughter was off sailing around the world with Semester at Sea.  When she got back mid-year, she was assigned a lulu bell for a roommate and bargained with us to get an off-campus apartment a semester early. She wasn’t there a month… when she brought home a Chiweenie puppy, Apachi, who was being given away outside the pet store, near school, where she had just gotten a part-time job after returning from her sail.  A pet store job is never a good idea for her.  Major Problem… it was a no pet apartment and we had signed a year’s lease.

Baby Apachi

Not long after getting Apachi, our daughter’s colitis flared up to an extreme level (I tend to think some vaccines that they got overseas might have exacerbated her condition adding to some stress in her life at the time and too much drinking and partying during that period and trip). After a week at an alternative care facility in an attempt to avoid radical surgery, she unfortunately ended up having to have 2 major surgeries and I spent a total of 54-days (24/7) in the hospital sleeping on a cot in her room, with her.  My husband was home with Angel and Apachi and visited daily.  With all that was going on we really didn’t think about the fact that neither 6 month old Apachi nor Angel had been fixed.  Angel is a half long-hair half short-hair fawn face Chihuahua with a really easy going disposition and everyone had said, if we could breed her with a like-type male, they’d love to have a puppy, so I was looking for a mate for her and Apachi was just a baby and taking him in just got lost in all the goings on.

Next thing we knew… we had 4 puppies: Angelina, Magnum, Princess and Goji

Angel was a natural and great Mom and Apachi watched over them from somewhat of a distance… until they were weaned, at which point he took over.

The boys (Magnum and Goji) and Angelina went to new homes at 10-weeks of age and we decided to keep Princess.  Then a few weeks later Angelina came back to us, because her new family couldn’t keep her and we had requested that if anyone who took a puppy had problems that we would get the puppy back.  Long story short… we kept her too and that is how we went from birds, turtles and rats, at the time, to 4-dogs and a fish who survived being fed to our turtles.

Goji and Magnum

Princess and Angelina

We have been very blessed to have found homes for Magnum and Goji with wonderful families who keep in touch and let us know how the boys are doing at least a couple times a year…

Goji and Magnum above… Angelina and Princess below at age 2

Usually at the holidays or the pups’ birthday

Our 4 Sing Happy Birthday

The puppies were about 6-months old here

And this is them now…  Angel 6, Apachi 4 and the pups 3

It has been an amazing experience to watch this little family grow and interact.  An experience that most people and even animals don’t get to have unless you live in the country.  People ask, “Wow, aren’t they a lot of work?”.  I can honestly say that the joy so out-weighs any work, that I never even notice… and I cook for our four for all their meals.

As for our daughter… she went on to get  more furkids…

Precious (a Pomeranian), Merlin (a Papillion) and Annabelle (a Chorkie)

By Marion Algier/Ask Marion – Just One More Pet

Photos by the UCLA Shutterbug

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