31 Day Prompt - Day 9

Your most treasured item


I'm not sure they count, but my most treasured items are my furkids.  Their love is unconditional.  When I come home, whether I've been gone five minutes or five days, they greet me with the same amount of happiness and joy.  When I'm upset, they're upset with me and they don't question me or make fun of me.  They just do their best to comfort me.  Their day is made when they get to lay beside me.

Rocky and cat Sarge

Peka

This is our second generation.  Rest in peace, Sarge, our cat, Rocky and Peka.  They all had long and loving lives with us, before they passed four and five years ago.  The last one was Rocky, our beautiful black lab and it nearly killed us.  After that, we swore no more animals.  The pain was too much.  That lasted                      four months.

Our first was Brenna, our little malti-poo.  She had been a part of a seized puppy mill.  Spent the first four years of her life in a cage, having puppies.  I first saw her at Petsmart, getting a bath.  She was so time and shivering, and she melted my heart.  We went to Grainger County to pick her up, Dave complaining all the way that we didn't need another dog.  As soon as she landed in his arms, I didn't hear another peep.  Brenna had a lot of problems.  She didn't trust humans, she didn't know how to potty outside, she just didn't know how to be a dog.

So, in our infinite wisdom (?), we decided to help her out by getting a puppy.  So, three days later, on St. Patrick's day, we went to a rescue group to look at a little dog.  He wasn't so little.  I was ready to go home when the rescue worker came out with this tiny little puppy.  Dave was in love, and Brenna wasn't too sure, but she didn't eat him, so I thought it was safe to bring him home.  In honor of St. Patrick's Day, we gave him an Irish name; Donnagan, which means leader of the brown pack.

Donnagan was a ham from the start and a smart puppy.  It didn't take him long to learn to potty outside, use the doggy door and do all the things a puppy should do.  Luckily, he also taught those skills to Brenna.  Of course, I didn't practice what I always preach about starting off right.  Donnagan slept every night, curled up in my arms.  That sweet puppy breath was more than I could ignore.  And he loved to curl up against my shoulder.  Cute, right?  It wasn't so ute when he was thirty pounds and took up more than half the bed.  I admit, I laughed a lot when Dave decided to train him and kept picking up him up out of our bed and putting Donnagan in his own.  Donnagan was back in our bed before Dave was!  Sigh, what a bad influence I was.

Two years later, we ate something bad, evidently, and decided to add to our family.  It must have been food poisoning - I can't think of another reason why we would add a third dog to our menagerie.  So, Quincey came into our lives.  He was already five months old and the last member of his family to get adopted.  Donnagan didn't like him at all and Brenna tolerated him, barely, at the beginning.  But right from the first, he was our little ham.  He is the funniest dog I've ever known.  Donnagan could be in the worst mood, and Quincey will run around acting silly, until Donnagan just has to get in the spirit.  His family story was told earlier in this blog.  

The Three Stooges, as I fondly call them, are a handful, that's for sure.  But I can't imagine my life without them.  I joke sometimes that I'd give up the husband before I give up my furkids...