Meet The Dogs

My husband has been working hard on our backyard (getting grass to grow is awful. When we built, they seeded, but it did nothing so it's been a struggle ever since). Anyway, he wanted Lucas to have a backyard, which I thought was cute and odd since it's not really necessary for a baby at this point. haha Oh well, the dogs certainly enjoy that they can actually use their big fenced in yard now. They aren't left out there or anything (they much prefer our sofa or bed!) but do love to go out and play. It is so nice out today so I went out w/ them and snapped some pictures.

These are actually in reverse order of how I took them...oh well.

Anyway, meet our 4 legged babies. They will be so great w/ Lucas!


This is Riley, tired after running around w/ his toy tire. Riley is a dog that I rescued from my old barn. He showed up one day without any tags, my barn owner had never seen him, and didn't want to keep him. Being who I am, there was no way I could just leave him to roam around, so I took him home with me, gave him a flea bath (he was covered in them and very skinny) and contacted vets, puts ads on Craigslist, etc. Of course his owner was never found, which was fine with me b/c I think it would have broken my heart to give him back to such a person who would allow their dog to live like this. Still, I really did NOT want a 3rd dog, but what can you do? Riley is sooooo sweet. We try to find things that will annoy him sometimes just so he will not want to cuddle or be pet 24/7. We've yet to find it.
Racing around w/ his toy.

Truman is a lazy, gentle giant. He goes out to play, but more just hangs about until he gets a random, very short, burst of energy to play w/ the other two.

Truman (the white guy) was adopted when we got home from our honeymoon almost 2 years ago. We had Joey (black dog) for about 2 1/2 years at that point and I really hated having just one dog. They are pack animals and even though she was fine, I felt she needed a buddy.

So we adopted Truman from a Great Dane rescue group in town. His story is interesting! The woman who had him rescued him from a drop off site at a vets office. Apparently Truman was in the drop box with a mom, her litter of puppies, and another (not so nice) dog who was trying to get at the puppies. Truman lay over the puppies the entire time to protect them. He has tons of scaring on his belly from the puppies trying to nurse on him. When the Great Dane girl rescued him she just couldn't let him go to just anyone, so she kept him for a few years. But she always had 10-12 rescues at her house and felt Truman needed a smaller family to get more attention b/c he's so laid back and easy going. She put him up for adoption and we heard about him and quickly fell in love.

Truman finally gets Riley!
Truman's burst of energy







Joey is my baby. We rescued her at 6 weeks old from a lady 3 hours away from our university (my husband and I were in college, living together at the time) who had an "oops" litter. Her dog was an Australian Shepherd and the neighbor dog a Rottweiler. Of course, her ad on a message board (horse related) that I visit read "I'm taking them to the pound tomorrow if they are not adopted".

So Matt and I drove the 3 hours to pick up a puppy. I'm not sure we would have done it (or he would have let us do it! lol) if we hadn't learned this:

Joey was born December 14, 2004. This was the same day my Papa (who Lucas Joseph is being named after) died and the day before my 21st birthday.

6 weeks after all of this I was still having trouble getting out of bed and going to class. I wanted no part of life. Getting a puppy would MAKE me survive and give me something to focus on. So we named her Joey after him and drove the 3 hours home w/ this poor little puppy who was of course scared and taken from her mother way too soon. Joey is my girl :)


I've been spotted w/ the camera.