One Puppy times Three

It is time for you to meet the final three pups in our menagerie.  About seven years ago, a couple of the kids were concerned that I would have nothing to do now that they were all growing up.  What they didn't understand was that I was actually looking forward to decreasing my load.  But to be honest, my job as a mom wasn't getting easier as the kids were getting older, it was just getting different.  So, to keep me from being lonely and bored, they brought home a puppy and named him Pistol Pete after the great basketball player Pistol Pete Maravich.  Don't even begin to think that this dog had any basketball skills, but he was cute and energetic.  He is a mixed breed, beagle and Jack Russell.  Wishful thinking makes me say that the beagle part of him calms down the Jack Russell.  Who am I kidding?

Almost immediately this puppy developed an attachment to us.  He became so attached that he literally went nuts every time we left him.  We bought him a cage to keep him safe when we were gone.  He ate the door off.  We tried to block him in the mudroom, he unrolled an entire roll of toilet paper in the bathroom.  We bought him a larger cage that reminded me of a play pen with no floor.  He would drag that all around the kitchen.  We tried to block him in the kitchen and he promptly buried a bone in one of my houseplants.  I could kill my plants perfectly fine without his help!  This was a dilemma!

In my wisdom, I determined that he simply had separation anxiety.  He needed a friend.  And if this idea worked, I might have a new career as an animal psychologist.  So, one week when "Doc" was out of town, I decided to get Pistol a friend.  My mistake was in taking "Mini Me" and "The Surprise" with me to purchase a friend.  We got to the pet store and went from cage to cage with big eyes falling in love with almost every single dog there.  Then they really "get" you because they take the puppies out and let you play with them and get to know them.  It was cruel!!!  We narrowed it down to two dogs. One was an adorable beagle with the most soulful eyes I have ever seen.  She would grow to be the right size for Pistol as a friend.  The other was the tiniest, cutest little Yorkie I have ever seen.  I was afraid that she would break if I touched her.  Well, you guessed it.  They both came home with us.  Belle the Beagle and Prudence the Yorkie. 

Now, how do I explain this to "Doc" who grew up without pets?  We suddenly have five dogs!  Three of them inside.  How about, welcome home honey.  Meet our new surprises!  No.  Somehow I was struggling to find the words.  But then I thought, wait.  This is all his fault anyway.  He went away for a week and left me to solve the problem.  I did the best that I could under the circumstances, right?  I am not sure that he has ever gotten over the pet additions.  I can tell you that they have given us a lot of laughter and have kept companies in business with our need for products to clean up their "accidents".  Hey, we kept the kids too.