My kids.
Okay, backofthepack asked what kind of dogs I have and since I love to talk about my kids here they are.
This is Mana. She is my oldest, 15 years, black lab mix. She is deaf and blind, that's not the reflection in her eyes, those are cataracts. She's has arthritis and is starting to have trouble walking. I have had her since she was 12 weeks old and it's very, very hard knowing we are going to lose her soon. Then, of course, we have to decide when it happens and really, how do you make a decision like that?????
This is Nala. She is an 8 year old pure bred pit bull. We have had her since she was 6 weeks old. She has serious knee problems. When she was 3 she had to have knee surgery because the groove her kneecap rides in wasn't deep enough so her kneecap would slip out of the groove and cause her lots of pain. Now, her other knee has serious arthritis and she may have a partially ruptured ACL. Right now we are working on getting some weight off her (she's a little chubby) and try to get the knee a little better. Then it's to the ortho and probably surgery. She is the baby of the family and totally a spoiled brat. She has to sit on the couch between me and hubby and has to lay between us in bed. She is such a lover.
Finally, there's Rocco.
Rocco, aka Monkey, is my big boy. He is a 10 year old mutt. Mom was a pure golden retriever while dad had a little bit of everything. We found Rocco in the flower fields when he was 7 weeks old. He weighed 4 lbs and fit in the palm of my hand. Now he's 90 lbs and his head comes up to my hip. Rocco is not the brightest bulb on the tree. I call him my surfer dude. He will sit and stare at the ocean for hours. As soon as you open the door and let him out he runs right into the water, just like you see him. Our move to the new house is going to be hardest on him since we won't be on the ocean anymore. We are close however and will be taking them regularly.
Rocco and Mana are the ones scared of the thunder, Nala just barks at it.
So those are the kids. Since our real kids are grown and moved away, these guys really have become our children. Everything we do revolves around them. In fact our kids say we treat the dogs way better then we ever treated them. It's probably because the dogs just don't talk back. Well, Nala does a little but it's not too bad.
There you have, my family :)
Comments
We were a four dog family for years - started out with two corgis, added a pregnant choc lab, had eight puppies and kept one, then had to make that horrible decision about our oldest corgi, got a black lab, next had to make the same horrible decision about Mama lab, then the second corgi. This was over a period of about five years. Our boys showed the black and choc in 4H for about six years. Now we just have Sundae, the puppy we kept, who is now nine! Our black lab was younger and went to live with a family with four kids - we found we were so busy and the boys were done showing that the dogs weren't getting the attention they needed. We found Molly a wonderful home where she is doted on, and we are spoiling Sundae rotten. It was a hard decision but has worked out well for us.