My four (and three legged) family

So I really have nothing to talk about.  Maintenance is kind of boring, not easy mind you.  Work sucks; as always I work with a bunch of drama queens who will finish a good tidbit of gossip themselves if they don't know the real ending. 

A few people have asked me about my furry family.  I have 7 rescued dogs.  Yes 7.  I am what they call a foster failure.  I love all of them to pieces and just couldn't imagine losing any of them.  However, there will not be a number 8!!

This is Hunter with his Daddy probably 5 years ago.  Hunter is the real love of my life, probably his daddy's too if truth be told.  He is the best dog in the world.  I found him in a park when I was a park ranger (ha, Dennis too) and he was a very sick little guy of maybe 3 months old.  We got him all fixed up.  I swear this dog can read my mind now.  Is it possible for your soul mate to be a dog?

This was the little guy the day I found him.  Brings tears to my eyes still.

And one more, he is probably almost 11 in this picture, it was taken May 2011, right before my surgery.  He has a lot more grey now.

This is Sidney, our little cuddle bug.  Dennis found him running loose at a busy intersection and chased him down.  He had a collar but no tags and we never found his owner.  Hunter and him became BFF and since Hunter was less than a year old, we were more than happy to give him something else to chew on.

He was a over a year old when we found him and hadn't been neutered so he really like to run off in search of greener pastures.  We got that nipped pretty quickly and he decided it just wasn't worth the chase.  He is the reason I am late for work most mornings because he loves to sit with me in my chair while I am getting ready and go back to sleep and snore.

And his daddy gave him a bad haircut, that doesn't help the poor little guy. Who could leave those big brown eyes?

Next is Libby

she literally showed up on my front door in the middle of the summer.  She is a beautiful girl but she is not a very clingy dog.  She pretty much just stays to herself and only comes around for a kiss or a snuggle when she is good and ready.

She loves the snow and cold.  She rolls in it like most dogs roll in mud.

So now we come to Dexter.  He too showed up in my front yard.  I was leaving for work and this little thing ran from under my truck.  I remember it like it was yesterday, I was wearing a new pair of khakis and he got them all muddy.  Should have seen the road ahead from that moment.

He was still a puppy and had mange (like Hunter) but I was confident we would be able to find him a home.  He was so cute; even if I do have a soft spot for little black puppies.  We soon found out that he had been abused badly and had some serious emotional problems, possibly schizophenia. 

It is really hard to get a picture of him because we can't take him into public places...he is known to find the biggest dog and try to challange them.  He also doesn't like to be very far from his mommy.  Poor thing has serious anxiety issues.  Pretty much made it impossible to adopt him out knowing this.  Didn't have many options.

This a charcoal drawing done of the picture above by a 16 year old kid I met at an art event.  I gave him free reign of my flickr account and let him pick what picture he wanted to do.  I am scared to death I am going to come home from work and find Dex stroked out from stress.  No one deserves that.  So, he is spoiled rotten.  He doesn't get along well with the other dogs but he sure loves us.  He has a really old soul.

Cassidy came next.  My little Hop Along Cassidy AKA Sassylashes.  The biggest ham to ever live.

I came across her as a volunteer for a local rescue.  I was NOT happy with the vet in charge or how Ms. Lashes was being treated (or most of the other dogs for that matter but Cass and I had bonded).  I had been on the board of the organization, so I adopted my little lashes and resigned.  The back story on her; she was brought in after a lady saw her get hit by a car.  She had previous wounds and was infested with maggots (imagine finding that in your car!!)  She was very sick and they weren't sure if she would make it. 

They gave her 3 days before they gave up on her.  She was on IV antibiotics and was running a really high fever.  On the morning of the third day she was standing up in her cage telling everyone her life story.   So they sent her off to have the back leg with the dead tissue amputated.

You can see how spoiled she is.  She is on special diet medication through the vet.  She will eat until she passes out at the food bowl if we let her.  There is no doubt that she could have been a sled dog if she had that fourth leg.

She OWNS the backyard but I have hard wood floors in the house and she isn't as fond of that so she does a lot of this in the house...

She might be the goofiest dog in the world.  She will also sit in the middle of the floor and stick her toenail in her mouth, after she makes sure we are watching of course.  You can see Dexter's eyes behind me making sure she doesn't get too close to me.  I swear she can say MOMMY in that husky "bark" of hers. 

Foster is all Dennis' fault!!  He found her days before I was deployed to help with Hurricane Katrina.  He called me in a panic that he had found a hurt puppy.  I won't tell you what the first word out of my mouth was but it started with an F and it wasn't fine.

So I went and got her.  She was so tiny and so hurt but so trusting (sorry for the hairy belly picture).  We don't know what happened to her but her back leg was broken in 6 pieces.  They put a metal rod in and have her a 5% chance of keeping the leg.  I left pretty soon after her staples came out and I told Dennis he had to find her a home while I was gone.  Thus the name Foster, I told him we couldn't even name her.

She was such a cute puppy....

Then she grew up to be a demon.  She thinks she is a lap dog.  Her tail didn't wag for the first month we had her but once it started it hasn't stopped.

We call her Foster Monster now.  She can be a big bully and her and her little sister get in some serious fights.  She thinks she has to be touching someone if we are at home.  Oh, and the leg healed up fine.  It is about an inch shorter than the other three legs and she will always have a limp.  Nothing slows her down, she is the one most likely to get in trouble.

Last but not least is my little Marcy AKA Marcy Pants, AKA Ms. Pants

I saw her for a week straight running loose close to work.  She was a wild child and I couldn't get her to come near me.  Until, I went to Carabba's one day with a friend and bribed her into my car with Chicken Marsala.  She has had a fat bloated tummy ever since.

She is a lot like her sister Libby, not to fond of a lot of attention.  I love to kiss her big fat belly, she isn't so sure about that.

She just isn't too sure about this whole thing.  She is a grumpy little girl but very smart.  She figured out how to open the back door when she was tiny.  This is how she got her name...smarty pants turned into Marcy pants, turned into pants.  I get some looks when I am calling "Pants" around the neighborhood.

I had her adopted out but they brought her back because she nipped at their 2 year old.  Like I said, grumpy girl.  She doesn't like it when rain or snow falls from the sky but when there is snow on the ground she is determined to find the hole it came up from if she has to eat all the snow from the yard.

Partners in crime.

All 4 girls

I could seriously sit her and post pictures all day.  I know you have had an eye full and I need to get going.

Hope you have a great weekend.