Puppy Love: Danger and Daisy

About 2 years ago, I wrote in a blog posting about finding a dog I called "Lucky" while on a metal detecting gig. Both Greg and I lived in apartments at the time, so we had to leave a scared and porcupine-quilled Lucky in an abandoned house until we could get the SPCA to rescue him the next day.

I couldn't get that dog out of my head, so about a week after we found him, I took a ride down to the SPCA, about an hour away, just to check to see if he was OK. He had gone through surgery and was in great shape - but he had got adopted the day before, so I didn't get to see him.

Jump ahead a few months. Greg and I had purchased a house (4 months after we met?!?!?!) and I was off to the hairdresser one Saturday to get my hair back to it's natural blond :-). But when I walked into the salon, there were little puppies in a box on the floor. By the end of my appointment, I had called Greg, and said, "There are 2 puppies here that have no home. I can bring home 0, 1, or 2. How many should I bring home?" He said "Bring 'em both!". I was so happy he said that, I actually had tears in my eyes! In the city, it was pretty much impossible to have pups, as I travelled so much, and worked such long hours, they would have been neglected.

In the year and a half that we have had Danger and Daisy, here is what they have taught me:

1) If you name a dog Danger, he will live up to his name. Eat a whole rubber glove in one gulp? Check! Crawl 10 feet into a snow/ice cave and not be able to get out? Check! Almost get done by another boy doggie? Check. (That happened today).
2) If you name a dog Daisy, she will be cute and cuddly, but perhaps lacking in the IQ department. Sorry, Daisy. Sad, but true.
3) If I love something enough, I will clean it's poop and barf. And I will not barf while doing it.
4) Although my only other pets were tiny little goldfish, which I left in the sunshine one day by mistake, I *am* able to keep another living thing alive besides myself. 
5) When I was in my 20's my brothers gave me a Tamagotchi for my birthday. It was a little hand-held digital pet. I was so impatient that I drowned it while I was peeling potatoes when it was about 3 days old. After that, I figured if I could not keep an electronic pet alive, there would be no way of keeping a real pet alive. I learned I am way more patient when real big brown eyes are staring at me, than when I have beady little electronic eyes staring at me.

6) I have maternal instincts. When a big, bad, dog chased my puppies around the yard trying to eat them, I chased the big bad dog around my yard with a table leg yelling obscenities that would make most people blush. People might have also blushed because what I was wearing really should not have been worn while running around the yard yelling obscenities! I hope no-one caught that on video.
7) A person can use all kinds of external things to relax at the end of a long work day: have a beer, watch TV, eat chocolate.... but the best way to relax is to have a little puppy or two lick your face over and over because they are just so happy to see you. (Unfortunately, my puppies are the types that just ate their own poop before enthusiastically licking me).