Ode to Riley, Charlotte, and Max the Bunny

I don't want you all to think that we've forgotten our first loves since the arrival of our son, so I will devote this post to the furry ones that live amongst us.

Max was our first baby. We got him at a pet store in a mall while living in an apartment in Rye, NH. While I don't believe in buying animals from pet stores and perpetuating the puppy/kitten/bunny mills that are out there, we just had to bring Max home. It was the day before Easter, the pet store window was filled with fuzzy little bundles of hoppiness. There was one bunny that stood out from the rest. He was bigger than the others, which meant he was older, and less likely to go home. He also had a bunny poop squished into his fur, which more than sealed his fate. He wasn't going anywhere looking like that, and it wasn't his fault he'd been born for a pet store sale. But we weren't supposed to have any pets at our apartment and Brendan insisted we think it over before buying him on impulse. The next morning we decided to go back and get him. We drove to the mall, and found it closed. It was Easter Sunday. I was devastated that our bunny had to spend one more night there...we went back the next morning and bought Max the Bunny who, by the way, still had a poop squished into his fur. We took him home, cleaned him up, and he's been our buddy ever since. He lives in our loft now, in a cozy condo complete with hand painted house and play yard...he has the softest fur in the world - it is far better than cashmere or angora or any of the other so-called soft fabrics out there. The way it feels is, I imagine, much like how we think touching clouds would feel. Max is a character...he has a close and personal relationship with two bouncy balls from the grocery store which is, incidentally, how we determined his sex. He is terribly curious, lightning fast, and always busy. We have to give him new things to chew on and destroy frequently to keep him from getting bored. Right now he is watching me type this, and probaly wondering why I'm not offering up any yogurt snacks.

Riley was the second furbaby, and our first dog. Almost a year after we brought Max home, and a few months after the purchase and recarpeting of our first house, we decided having a dog might be fun. I researched shelters and found one I liked that had a program called Homebound Hounds, in which hunting breeds (labs, hounds, spaniels) from an overwhelmed no-kill shelter in Virginia were brought to New England to find their forever homes. Shelters in New England seldom have these breeds available, instead they tend to have very large breeds (rottweilers, pit bulls, etc....all fine dogs, but not what we wanted). One day in February Brendan finally gave me the go-ahead to go and get a puppy. My friend Margie and I drove from South Berwick, ME to the Sterling Animal Shelter in MA (http://www.sterlingshelter.org/) to pick out a small female dog. We arrived before they were open for the day and a line of cars formed behind us. When they opened the gates we went through pen after pen of puppies, all of them beautiful and well cared for. The sign on Riley's pen said "hound/shepard mix, mother was 30 lbs." One of Riley's brothers bit my pant leg and tugged at it and Riley followed behind him, very curious but a little too skittish to approach me on her own. I picked her up and she melted into me, all warm and soft and cuddly, and promptly fell fast asleep. I spent more time looking at the other puppies but could not bring myself to put her down, so she came home with us that day. Riley's life has been a series of medical disasters...as a puppy she suffered from chronic yeast infections in her ears, and broke out in boils whenever she came into contact with hay or straw. Her eyes swelled shut after a bug bite and she needed the equivalent of an epinephrin shot to yank her out of her reaction. She had what seemed like an asthma attack after having a Bordatella vaccine sprayed into her nose (this is one way the vaccine can be administered) and we raced to the vet yet again. She had surgery to remove a large lump of gunk that was obstructing the healing of her ruptured ear drum. We finally got her ears under control while living in CT, and then we moved to NY, where the rest of her promptly fell apart. Her skin is an almost constant rash of boils and irritation, and her ears are going through stages of infection again. We have very good vets helping us through all of this...we've done allergy testing and the results show she's allergic to, well, everything. Beef, chicken, oak trees, dust mites, most yard weeds, yeast, wheat, etc. We tried allergy shots, but she reacted badly to them and ended up at the emergency room for pets. Right now, Riley is medicated daily with Prednizone, and she sometimes needs Benadryl and antibiotics as well. She is now a whopping 50 lbs and does not resemble hounds or shepards in the least. We have her skin and ears under control, and her quality of life is good. She licks and scratches quite a bit, but she's a love of a dog and I would not trade her for any of the other puppies I could have brought home that day. She was my comfort on the darkest days after our infertility diagnosis...she sat with her head in my lap as I cried, and licked me reassuringly. I know that she will always be as dedicated to us as we are to her, and for that she is a great dog.

Charlotte Louise (yes, she has a middle name) joined our family in the fall of 2004. She was our obligatory infertility dog (OID). We were down in the dumps, it was Brendan's birthday weekend in October (he was turning 30) and we had no plans. I suggested we go to the animal shelter and just look at the puppies to cheer ourselves. When all else is dreary, there's nothing like a little puppy love to brighten your day! We drove to Save-a-Stray in Corinth(http://www.petfinder.org/shelters/NY61.html) and spent hours playing with the puppies. There was one little beagle mix in a pen outside the front door, and she was sooooo cute...Brendan had always wanted a beagle so it seemed our fates were sealed. We drove to the bank, deducted the correct amount of money, and brought home Charlotte. We didn't know much about beagles, except that they howl, but we found out very soon that they are full of heart, spunk, attitude, deviousness, and love. She is a dear dog, although wild in her abandon of manners and decorum. She sits daintily with front paws crossed one minute, and the next she's chasing your feet as you walk, or howling at a bug on the floor. The dogs are fed at 7:00 pm each day, and Charlotte sits in the kitchen looking longingly at her dish starting at 5:30 or 6:00. It is the only time of day that she shows any type of patience. She paws at the door feverishly to be let in...if it were wooden there would surely be a doggie door clawed through it by now. When guests come to our house she is a bungee dog, jumping straight up into the air trying to get closer to the guest's face so she can lick it. She snores. Loudly. She is as healthy as a dog can be, and visits the vet only for shots. When the first snow of the year falls, Charlotte stops using the deck stairs and instead gets a running start, then jumps with all her might as far as she can from the deck. It is hysterically funny, and she gets quite a bit of distance for such a small dog. SHe likes to sleep covered up with a blanket, and sometimes crawls under our bed and howls in the middle of the night. Oh Charlotte. You are a stinker, indeed.

Max has now fallen asleep to the sound of my typing, and Charlotte is on the bridge growling playfully to Riley below. It's time I put the computer to bed and spent some time with my little furry friends.