Pregnant? Are you freaking kidding me? - a brief history of our fur babies - past and present - ..... and future it seems

 My husband and I have 3 dogs and a cat. Our cat's name is Bandy (I wrote a little about her in my post regarding the Porch Kitties). Our dog's names are - in order of acquisition, Daisy: a small elderly Chihuahua. She is my OG. Annabelle; she is an almost solid white Blue Heeler,  1 yr and 5 months old and there is Fanny; she is a normal colored Blue Heeler, also 1 yr and 5 months old. Her and Annabelle are litter-mates, sisters. 

We also have 4 beloved dogs that sadly are no longer with us. Freckles, Marley, Hunter and Patch. Daschund, Maltese, Blue Heeler and Blue Heeler.

Freckles and Marley

Freckles was the first baby I got after I moved back to Texas, when I essentially, started my life over at 35 with everything to my name filling no more than two suitcases and a carry-on. (Another story for another time) Right after I bought my home I got Freckles and she was so precious. It was just the two of us for quite some time but she had a "boyfriend" that lived next dog. This white little raggamuffin named Marley. He was such a rockstar and when the neighbors couldn't care for him anymore it was just natural that he move in with us. 

Then I met my husband, and he was a package deal with the sweetest, grumpy old man of a dog there ever was, Hunter - or Mr. H as he is lovingly referred to. And about two months after that we got Patch as a freshly weened baby boy. He was supposed to be my husbands' dog, but unfortunately for him, but luckily for me; Patch chose me to be his human. I have never had a stronger bond with an animal before or since and probably never will. 

We lost Marley first, to a HORRIFIC and TRAGIC incident that still fills me with rage. The only detail I will go into is that he was stomped to death by an unparented, sociopathic nephew of my husband's that will probably end up being a serial killer if he isn't already. Too bad really, if he had been given any parental guidance at all he could have been a good kid. Maybe. It was the day that happened that Harry was supposed to pick up Daisy, but it got postponed by a week or two, so Marley and Daisy never met.

We got Daisy about 6 years ago as a rescue. Some person had dumped nine random dogs into this lady's back yard when she was not home and so she was trying to find a home for each of them. I saw Daisy's picture on a rescue website and fell in love. We are not sure of her age or history, but based on the condition of her teeth and the fact that she had heartworms, I do not think she was well cared for. But she is as sweet as can be even if her breath could cause an elephant to pass out.

Daisy

In December of 2015, we had to say our goodbyes to Mr. H. He was 13 and developed sepsis from a tumor that he had previously had removed. It was heartbreaking as this was my husband's best bud, and he was not home when it happened and had to say goodbye via Facetime. But Hunter recognized the sound of his voice and peacefully made his exit from this world, where he is young and playful and waiting for us to meet him.

Hunter

We had moved to Abilene the next spring and that August we got Bandy. As I previously wrote about, she was found by my husband and my precious boy Patch, covered in ants and just hours old. I raised her from that point on, bottle-fed, stimulated the hoo-ha so she would learn to pee on her own, (which by the way I was unaware of this necessity as I had never owned a cat, being very allergic and all...). I cannot tell you how many times I got covered in projectile diarrhea. And if you count standing by and just laughing as help then my mother and husband helped. I do not, however, count this as help and neither does Bandy I suspect because she hates everyone really, but me. She LOVES me. Also, she is not aware that she is a cat and I have not had the heart to tell her.

Bandy

I got Annabelle for my husband as an anniversary present. A co-worker at work was going to get a new Blue Heeler puppy and there was one left in the litter. She was all white, a big fatty and looked to be as calm and loving as could be. That turned out not be 100% accurate. She is all those things, but she is also a bully, a terrorist and in general a constant source of loving aggrevation. She is my "short-bus" kid. We had her tested, she is behaviorally challanged, if I used the phrase correctly. Basically, she has extreme anxiety and will throw a fit if she soesn;t get her way. But she makes up for it with her abundance of love and affection, and all around weirdness. For exampe, I have to sing this silly dog a lullaby everynight or she wll not lay down. She will just stand on my bed and bark until i sing her the nighty night song.

    "My name is Annabelle and I'm a bossy  bitch

     My name is Annabelle and I likes to raise hell

     My name is AnnabellA when i likes the Fellas"

Yep!  I have to sing that repeatedly while rubbng her belly for about 10-20 minutes every night.

Annabelle

Shortly after getting Annabelle though two things happened. The first is my husband changed jobs and could no longer have a pet on the truck with him. He is an OTR truck driver and the new company did not have a pet policy. So, now I was stuck having to deal with the daily stresses of raising a puppy which I was not particularly overjoyed about. The second and most impactful thing, was I lost my beloved Patch. I will not go into great details about this tragedy now as I am still not able to talk about it. I will just say that he was lost do to avoidable complications from a surgery to remove a bowel obstruction. Due to the many circumstances surrounding this, I have developed an unhealthy fear, although warranted, of vets. I have one family friend that is a vet that I trust but he does not live near me unfortunately.  It will be a year on 2/26 that we lost him. 

Patch

Fanny

 Then less than a week after my boy faded from my life, the co-worker that had gotten her puppy from the same litter that I got Annabelle, decided that she could not keep her. Something about the other dogs picking on her or some nonsense. And she felt that it was exactly what I needed to get over my loss of Patch (that if you are paying attention, the wound was less than a week old) The thought process that she must have gone through to reach this conclusion will never make sense to me, and I have just resigned to accept that it was just plain selfishness and exploitation of my weakened emotions. Her other option was to take the dog to the pound. Talk about playing the guilt card. I agreed ( very apprehensively and with an enormous sense of betrayal to my boy - irrational or not is irrelevant) but stated that I needed at least two weeks as I was still not able to even get out of bed. The level of emotional devastation and breakdown that I was teetering on was extremely precarious. With the exception of two of my friends (and you two lovely ladies know who you are), no one was grasping just how close I was to the brink of a complete mental breakdown. I told everyone, just no one was listening. Now I need to back up and take a moment to bring to light the uncanny resemblance between Patch and the new baby who we would come to rename Fanny. (I mean they named a sweet girl dog Phantom - are you serious???) Look at the two pictures above - they are not the same dog - One is Patch and the other is Fanny.  I mean, is this co-worker's infinite "wisdom" she was trying to convince me that what I needed was to take in yet another puppy that looked identical to the one I just lost. This she was doing to help out my well being. I might not be a member of Mensa but I do have above average reasoning capabilities. The shortened version was that I did not get the two weeks of adjustment time I had the audacity to ask for as Fanny was dropped off just a few days later. It took about 6 months if I am being completely honest,  to come to terms with the fact that I was slightly resentful to the new babies and was measuring them by the exceptionally high standards that I held Patch to. I remember the exact moment when it hit me -  a moment a clarity they call it I believe - when I realized that they would never fill his shoes, that they had their own shoes to fill and that was okay. I believe I even spoke these words out loud to them while crying and apologizing to them for expecting them to be something that can never be. I still have a very long way to go the heal, but that was the turning point. And I did all this with only 1 major melt down, that involved a lot of puppy poop, many hysterical and ranting phone calls - placed by yours truly - offering to FedEx the poop to both my husband and the previous owner of fanny. but in my defense, I did let everyone know I was just two blocks away from crazy town.  Maybe they will listen next time.

Since then, things have somewhat calmed down and gotten into a routine of sorts. Annabelle is aggressive from time to time. She is behaviorally challenged - we had her tested and her aggression had seemed to escalate since the beginning of December. I finally overcame my totally understandable fear of the vet and let my husband make an appointment to get Annabelle fixed, with the advice that it will calm her down and then she could go on her anxiety meds, I had several panic attacks the days leading up to her appointment and basically drove everyone crazy but at last, we were there to drop her off. I walked her in, spied the place out. Made sure the previous vet wasn't for some reason at this new facility and back in the car getting ready to go home and stress out until she was back home later that day when ....... they came back out with her lopping along, happy as can be. To which we were then informed that ANNABELLE IS PREGNANT!!!!

Are you flipping kidding me. I do not know nothing about birthing no babies.  And no anxiety meds because she is pregnant. She has become a little terrorist. I just spent a small fortune today getting her "whelping box" ready. I love animals and the more the merrier has always been my motto but I think I am in way over my head.

Also, each baby has there own song - or songs, I will not list them all here because Patch's song is still too painful but:

Daisy's song: "My name is Daisy my and I've got to say, I might be small but I am here to stay, And if you stop petting me, I'll say Heeeeyyyy...."

Bandy's Song: "My name is Bandoline and Ilke to Bandywine....."

Fanny's Song: "I love my Fanny May, I love my Fanny my - hi-ho the day is long, I love my Fanny may"