Two Peas In A Pod

You may recall that a few months back we adopted a six-year-old hound mix named Pete. You can find his back story here and here. We are now four months past official adoption, and he and our first dog, Maggie, could not behave any more like human siblings. It is unreal (and I am hoping good experience for kids!). Their personalities are so different. Maggie is very independent, while Pete loves to be around (on top of, next to, etc.) people at all times.

Maggie is a typical bossy little sister, barking at Pete any time she perceives us to be correcting him. Most of the time it is funny, but when she decides to bark at him and herd him from one room to another at bedtime, it can be a little much. She will still occasionally try to herd him for no reason, biting and tugging on his ears and face, but by this point, Pete is over being polite and has been known, on more than one occasion, to swat her on the head.

While they have their moments of sibling rivalry, more often than not you will find them playing “monkey see; monkey do”. One afternoon I was working from home, and they were laying on opposite ends of the couch in the sun room. Every few minutes they would swap sides of the couch. Most evenings, Pete sleeps on his bed on the floor, and Maggie lies on the love seat just above him. Close, but not too close.

Despite the heat we have been experiencing, those fools will spend all day outside, many times just eating grass (we now have actual grass – it no longer looks as bad as the picture!). At night they will go outside and retreat to the far back corner of the yard behind the garage where we can’t see them. We have yet to figure out what they are doing, but they will be back there for over an hour. Sometimes they come in huffing and puffing and all out of breath. Most times we have to go out and call them in. I’m sure it has something to do with a possum or raccoon, and I dread the day that we find something dead back there.

A couple of weeks ago my husband told me they were working in tandem to trap a squirrel on the fence. Pete stood on deck blocked that route while Maggie kept closing in on it along the fence line. I can imagine what would have happened had they fully executed their plan before my husband went out to stop them.

We certainly had our reservations about how these two would get along, even once we’d made the decision to keep Pete. They can certainly be exhausting, and they sometimes get into real fights, but overall I think Maggie is happy to have a friend, and Pete seems to love living here. I’ve never regretted our decision for a second.

Head vs. Heart

Some decisions involve your head, some involve your heart, some involve both.  For me, the decisions that involve both are usually the hardest.  Typically, these types of choices are those where the head should win out, but the heart makes it very difficult to make the right choice (or at least the choice that the head thinks is right).  I recently had to go through this process, and I knew that there would be vastly different results depending on which organ won out.

If you recall, a few weeks ago we took our dog to meet another dog, Pete.  Pete’s owners, who are friends of a friend, were no longer able to keep him.  I saw the picture of him and felt a tug (well, really, a yank) on my heartstrings.  What a sweet face.  How could anyone get rid of him?  I immediately forwarded the email to my husband, fully expecting an immediate and resounding no.  Imagine my surprise when, after pointing out  all of the potential issues with getting a second dog, he said we could still meet him and see how things went.  Pete and Maggie got along swimmingly.  They ran around the yard together.  They barked at other dogs.  We decided we would take Pete the next weekend for a test run.

He arrived at our house and things did not go as expected.  Maggie began barking at him and bullying him around.  She just would not leave him alone.  He explored the house for a while, and then all of a sudden he would no long walk on the hardwood floors.  This presented a problem because about 90% of our house has hardwood flooring.  We put some blankets down for him and he would timidly walk only on those covered areas.  I immediately started feeling sad because I thought there was no way this was going to work out.

Pete also struggled with learning how to use the dog door.  He figured out how to go out, but he refused to come back in through the door.  Despite these things, Pete was a very well-behaved dog.  Much better than Maggie.  His owners told us that he has a lot of anxiety when people leave.  We had no idea what we were in for.  We left that Sunday morning to go get some brunch, and as soon as we put our jackets on he began howling.  He’s a hound, so this pitiful, mournful bay came out of his mouth.  I’d never heard anything so sad.  It was as if he were saying “NOOOOOOOOooooo!”  We decided that a weekend wasn’t enough to truly assess whether or not he was going to fit in with our family, so we decided to keep him for the next week.

During that week, Pete learned how to come in the dog door.  He also learned (by watching Maggie) how to stand on the railing of the deck to look out over the yard.  He got over his fear of the hardwoods, and was soon running across them with Maggie.  We learned that Pete likes to bring you toys when you get home.  But not just one toy.  As many toys as he can fit into his mouth.  Sometimes he brings two, sometimes three.  It’s hilarious.  After a couple of rough incidents related to meal time, he and Maggie started respecting each other’s space and feedings went smoothly.

One week turned into two.  We kept discussing whether we were going to keep Pete.  Every time the discussion went something like this: Pete is a good dog.  We like him, but I don’t think Maggie is really warming up to him.  Do we really want two dogs when we are thinking about having kids soon?  Yet no decision was ever made because the heart wouldn’t let the head say what it really thought: We could not keep Pete.  At the end of two weeks, I said that we had to make a decision.  By this time, Maggie was spending a lot of her time trying to herd Pete, which involved nipping at his face, ears, and legs.  She was incessant.  Was she playing? Maybe.  Is that the kind of play we wanted in the house?  Probably not.  I was finally the first one to say it aloud, through small sniffs: I did not think we could keep Pete.  My husband agreed.

My small sniffs turned into body-wracking sobs.  I buried my face in Pete’s fur.  Seeing how upset I was, my husband offered to have us hire an in-home trainer before we made any decisions.  No, I said, worried that doing that would only prolong the inevitable, and it would be even harder to say good-bye.  I called Pete’s owner and managed to keep it together on the phone.  I could tell he was disappointed.  He said he would make some calls and get back to me.

Another week went by.  Maggie seemed to warm up to Pete.  Maybe we should keep him, we thought.  More of the same discussion.  No, I said.  We’d already made our decision.  We needed to stick with it.  I would steel my heart and get through it.  That Friday we heard from Pete’s owner.  The rescue had not yet found a foster home for him.  Maybe we should keep him until a foster family could be found.  I called Pete’s owner back, ready to offer this.  Before I could even do that, he said we had been generous enough, and he would come and get Pete on Sunday.  That would probably be for the best, I thought, though crying once again.

I was gone for part of that Sunday.  When I came home, my husband said Pete and Maggie had been outside in the yard, sleeping in the sun together.   Then they came in and both laid on my husband on the couch, and all three took a nap.  “What are you doing to me?”, I asked. That makes it even worse.  The time approached for Pete to leave.  I told my husband he would have to do all the talking because I would not be able to speak without crying.  Pete’s dad arrived, and oh, was Pete happy to see him.  That made it easier to say good-bye, but I knew Pete would not be able to stay with the family he had always known.  Through more tears, I watched Pete pull away.  Head had won out.

Or had it?  That night, Maggie was just lying around.  She looked sad.  Monday arrived, and we all felt sad.  Maggie was not doing her normal Maggie things.  Did we make a mistake?  I would not be the one to say that I thought the answer was yes, because I would be letting my heart speak.  The head had to be right in this situation.  Didn’t it?

By Wednesday, my husband said what I was too scared to say, “I think we just need to get Pete back.”  So, what did we do?  We got Pete back!  He arrived back at our house yesterday, and while he was not as ecstatic when he saw us as he was when he saw his owner the week before, he was happy.  And he was immediately feeling at home.  He and Maggie were soon tearing through the house.  They both slept on the bed with us last night (originally, I had no intentions of letting Pete on our bed.  Even though it is a king, Maggie takes up enough room.  My husband decided to invite him onto the bed one night.  I should have known then Pete was going to be a part of our family).  He and Maggie got along so well today.

My head knows that all of those concerns we originally had are still there.  But sometimes, every so often, the heart needs to win out.  The happiness and love that I feel when I look at Pete is all the evidence I need to know that we made the right decision, regardless of the fact that we followed our hearts.  I mean, look at that face.  Who can resist that sweet Pete?

A New Addition to the Family?

The other day a friend of mine forwarded an email from one of her friends about finding their dog a new home.  It seems that her friends are expecting their third child very soon, and are having difficulty dealing with their very active hound mix, Pete.  As the owner of an incredibly hyper dog, I can certainly sympathize, and stories like this break my heart.  I would be devastated if I had to give up my Maggie,  but I do worry about what will happen when we have kids.  Despite all of this, I saw the picture of Pete and I felt like we had to do something.  He just looked so sweet, and has a face similar to Maggie’s.  The description of Pete reminded me so much of Maggie’s behavior.  I felt that if anyone should welcome Pete into their home, it should be someone who knows how what to expect from an overly excitable dog.

I certainly had anxieties, and made it clear to Pete’s current parents that we would have to make sure that he and Maggie get along (she is very particular about other dogs), and that my husband is not allergic to him.  Maggie’s long hair doesn’t bother him, but short-hair dogs can bother him.  I also keep imagining two Maggies tearing through the house and barking at people walking on the street in front of the house.

This afternoon we left the house at 3:30 to go pick Maggie up from the kennel.  It’s over thirty minutes to the kennel, and then we were going straight to Pete’s house – clear on the other side of town.  She’s always a bit worked up when we pick her up.   I was hoping exhaustion would overcome her before we got there.  No such luck.  She was pacing back and forth in the back seat and leaping at every car we passed.  We arrived at Pete’s house and Maggie bounded out of the car, having no idea what she was in for.  As we walked up the driveway and introduced ourselves to Pete’s mom, we could see him leaping up so that his head and the majority of his body were visible in the door.  Yep, just like Maggie.

We got into the backyard, and Maggie did her typical growl when Pete tried to sniff her.  As soon as I got her off the leash, they circled each other, did some barking, and then started chasing each other.  It was awesome!  Pete is super fast, and they were tearing all around the yard, flipping up snow in their wake.  Amazingly, they never knocked down either of the two little boys.  Maggie was surprisingly gentle with both of them.  Pete was so sweet and friendly.  They played together for about over 45 minutes and we asked all of the questions we could think of.  We decided the next step would be to have some extended time with Pete – perhaps this coming weekend.  There’s no other way to know if Pete will really fit into our family unless he spends a few days with us.

I still am a bit apprehensive.  I am not certain that my husband is 100% sure about even doing the weekend visit, although I keep asking him and he says he’s OK with it.  I wonder if I’m insane even thinking about getting a second dog that is too much for a family with small kids to handle when we are planning on having kids in the next year or so.  I am trying to convince myself that we will be able to spend more time with him, spend more time exercising him (he could become my running buddy), etc. etc.  I also wonder if that is incredibly naive of me.  I guess we’ll see how next weekend goes.  Wish us luck!