ABC's of Me

D would be the next letter. It did not take much thought to come up with a d word. Dogs! Love them. Hate cleaning up after them. Love the look they give you when you come home from work and they are all jumping on me. When we moved down her 3 years ago we had 3: Blackjack, Jenni, and Lexi.
Blackjack was Genny's dog before we met. He was the funniest dog ever. His ears were on crooked, he had a tooth that stuck out and made him look like Elvis. I always imagined him saying, "thank you. Thank you very much." You know you heard Elvis' voice when you read that.
Genny had a Rottie named Baby. She died 2 weeks after having pups. Blackjack was the only one to survive. All the other puppies and Mom died. So Genny became Blackjack's momy. Literally and figuratively. This is Blackjack.

Blackjack is, unfortunately not with us anymore. He ran away and we have not seen him since. Its been about 8 months. It was very sad when we realized he was not coming back to us. It took about 3 months before Genny could walk in the house and not cry. He was definitely her dog. I do feel privileged though. I was the one man Genny dated that he did not want to attack upon entering her house. He and I would play for hours. It sounds like he was tearing my arms off, but it was always funny. My joke about him is he was so close to Genny, that when she burped it sounded like him barking.

While live here in Indiana we adopted a rottie. Her name was Jezzybelle. We spelled her name different because she was no Jezebel. She was so sweet. We rescued her from a local shelter. SHe was seized during the raiding of a meth lab. The vet told me that she was pregnant more often then she should have been. I guess the best way to describe how she was treated would be to call her a puppy mill. She was so funny. She would not beg for food unless it was pizza. We had the funny idea that her previous owners ate a lot of pizza. Probably a stretch for the owners of a meth lab. Here's Jezzy giving Amberlin some love.
The story with Jezzy takes a sad turn. You see she had bad hips. We knew we were bringing her home to live out her last days. Over time it began to get harder and harder for her to even stand up. It got to the point she stopped eating. I didn't have the heart to take her to some cold, sterile vet office. So I kept her home and kept her as comfortable as possible. With her head on my lap she passed away peacefully in Nov 2008.


We still have Jenni and Lexi. Jenni was another rescue dog that we have. She is a Dalmatian. I know this going to sound crazy but she's a little neurotic. She is 100% Amberlin's dog. She is very sweet. Our 2 year old niece can crawl all over her, pull on her ears and tail and Jenni will just lay there taking it all in.
Some times she will run around the living room crying, you tell her to lay down and she does. Then 30 seconds later she's up doing it again. She was supposed to be my dog. She is totally Amberlin's though.

The next dog is Lexi. Lexi is a beagle combined with the yellow hair of a lab. She's all beagle though. She barks like one. We got her from a neighbor in Ohio. She was giving them pups away and somehow we ended up with one. She's also Amberlin's dog. She's a little skiddish around little kids, so we keep her away from the nieces when they are here. She recently had puppies. She had atotaly of 10, but 3 didn't make it. So we went from 3 dogs to 10 over night.
The last dogs in my life are the puppies. They were a handful. They were very cute until we let them out of the kennel to eat and do their business. I affectionately referred to them as the poop machines. When I saw one of them in particular she got into my heart. I named her Bella. She just looked like a Bella. I'm not sure what a Bella looks like, but she sure does. She's the 2nd one from the left in this picture. She was/is the last one to go to a new home. I say is because her new family will take her home in one week. Which is okay by me. I get one more week to wake up with a little puppy face looking at me in the morning.
My sister says that dogs come in to your life and leave little muddy paw prints on your heart. I think this is so true. Every dog I have ever had in my life has done the same.

Now to contemplate the letter E. Hmmmm........