they can say, they can say we've lost our minds

While our normal may still be (more than) a bit crazier than most families' normals, we have been happily bopping along to a smooth groove for a while now. We've reflected that our big relocation happened at a golden time, with our three kids old enough to carry greater amounts of responsibility for themselves and in contribution to the family, along with the ability to stay home while mama and papa enjoy the local culture that a college town has to offer.

We're finally in a place that we could only dream of years ago. Weekday mornings see Hubby and I doing our own stuff to get ready for our work days, while our kids handle their school day prep. Afternoons and evenings require more than a handful of routine reminders, but long gone are the days of lengthy bathtime and bedtime rituals. Weekend mornings are a million times better since the kids rotate who takes out Max, the world's greatest mini-dachshund, while we lounge in bed until hours of which we should be ashamed. (But we're not, don't you worry.) 

Just when we had nothing but smooth sailing ahead of us... well, things got a little interesting.

It all began when we heard this story.

Athens News, 1/14/18

Sure, Hubby and I had been talking amongst ourselves about the general idea of adopting another dog, but other than following the local county shelter on Facebook and sometimes texting each other photos with "Awwwww" comments, it remained just an idea.

Then 100 dogs were rescued from a filthy home a mere 20 miles down the road, and our county's dog shelter took in a bunch of them. (To be completely accurate, 103 dogs were actually found in the house, according to the woman we spoke with at the shelter!) When they took to Facebook to share some photos of the dogs who had received some medical care and gotten cleaned up, it became apparent that a fair share of these dogs were dachshund mixes.

------ record scratch ------

Yup, you read that right. See, in all the time that we'd looked at local dogs available for adoption, there were never any doxies. This area seems awash in pit bulls and other I'm-sure-they're-lovely-breeds-but-they're-much-too-big-for-us-thankyouverymuch types of dogs, with little to none in the mini categories. Since Maxie Max has been a part of our lives these last two+ years, we've come to have a great appreciation for this delightful breed. And suddenly, there were literally dozens and dozens in need of homes.

Now, as this was not our first rodeo, we knew that we'd play it safe and head out on a recon mission on our own before speaking a word of anything at all to the children. We ran out to do some "errands" on a Saturday morning, telling the kids that we'd be back, and yes, they could watch ridiculous YouTube videos of adolescent-like man-children playing Minecraft while spewing nonsense into expensive microphones. Once they got that go-ahead, they couldn't care less where we were going. Off to the shelter we went.

How in the hell did we think we would still have a choice in this whole affair after we saw those dogs?

There had to be at least thirty dogs in the room, and we spent more than an hour simply talking to many of them, holding a few of them, and eventually falling in love. Okay, maybe that last part was just me. See, I'd held a few doxie mixes, and while they were cute, each had something that was potentially worrying. Some were too young, some were too yippy. Then I saw number 37.

She was so sad and so shy, and I couldn't take my eyes off her. I held her for a little while, and she was absolutely terrified.

We already have one shaky doxie, why not two?

I said I didn't want to be the one to make the ultimate decision, but I couldn't see us taking home any dog other than  number 37. Thankfully, Hubby is kind and generous, for I know he had his eye on one or two others.

Needless to say, when we informed the children where we'd been, the excitement level was through the roof. The bottom line, though, was Max's approval. And, in the absence of any enthusiastic approval, per se, we'd be satisfied with a simple not-negative response. In that pursuit, there we were back at the shelter the next morning, with the kids and Max in tow, to revisit number 37. After about a half hour in the visiting room all together during which lots of sniffing was done and no problems seemed evident, Hubby returned to the lobby to fill out the paperwork and turn our crew of six into lucky seven.

A whole lot of getting to know each other going on.

A priceless photo attempt, she fits right in!

Getting ready to go home, number 37 no longer!

Max, the mini-dachshund, made us a doggy family, and Minny, the dachshund-mix, made us complete.

Remember all that jazz about how smooth our life was? Well, we knew that would be put on hold because no matter how awesome a new dog could be, no canine on earth could possibly be as chill as Maxie Max. Dude truly lives to lie under a blanket all day with a few walks forced upon him every few hours. We weren't quite sure what life with Minny would look like.

The first week saw lots of challenges, and in the beginning, those challenges were a little unexpected. Things like stairs seemed to be brand new, along with drinking from a bowl of water. For the first couple days, we tried to get her to drink water off our fingertips, then a spoon, and food had to be hand fed. The poor girl was simply terrified. The idea of going for a walk outside with a harness and leash was obviously wholly brand new. While I imagine it was stressful living with 100+ other canines in a home where the floor was impossible to see under all the poop and pee, apparently the six of us were intimidating enough to this one-year-old dog who just wanted to hide.

Her first favorite spot, under a dining room chair.

Confused by the concept of a food tray...

It's been seven hours and fifteen days (seriously, that's a pretty close approximation!) since Minny came home. In that time, she's learned to drink and eat from her bowls, and she's mostly stopped sitting on the tray holding said bowls. She's definitely not graceful, but she does go both up and down stairs on her own, though all this hardwood makes things a little slippery at times. She seems to understand that her crate is her own, and she's also learning to love treats, something that they said she was just not into at the shelter. She's warming up to Hubby and JAM, but she's still pretty wary of Red and Pudge, much to their dismay. We're working on that, slowly and surely. Thanks to Max, we knew right away that doxies and blankets are a match made in heaven, and Minny has been given her own special one for her crate, though her adoration of all the other blankets in the house doesn't seem as strong as it is with Max.

The one thing that is clear is this... Max tolerates the rest of us but obviously would follow Hubby to the ends of the earth. Minny, however, has decided that I am her person. If I forgot what it was like to try to poop with a little one watching me from the bathroom floor, I'm reminded again. If I'm sitting somewhere and NOT holding her, I'm going to hear about it. Perhaps she should have been called Shadow, because that is what she is to me, at least for now. In this exact moment, she is lying on me, with her front legs curled around my left arm and her head resting on where my bicep would be if I had one.

As is my tradition with Max, Minny's learning the fine art of taking goofy selfies together, and she's trying to convince her canine brother that sharing a space to lie down can be a good thing. She's still pretty scared if the kids get too loud or too close, and she's still got to figure out how to walk on a leash without walking behind me and between my legs. She hasn't been on a long walk or a walk in the woods yet, but she'll get there, hopefully by this spring.

I may be covered in white hairs all the time now, and my weekend mornings involve getting up and taking her out instead of burrowing deeper under the covers since she's not comfy with the kids yet, but I'm so thrilled she's here. I can't even imagine what her first year of life was like. I think she's beginning to understand what it means to be cared for and loved.

She needed a home, and apparently, we needed a little more chaos again.

Title inspiration: "A Million Dreams" from "The Greatest Showman"