The Story of our Family

Chris and I usually find ourselves (quite often) telling people how we ended up with 7 dogs and usually it's followed up by people asking if we are going to keep all 7. The answer is "YES!". These dogs are our family and without all 7 of them we wouldn't be complete.

So, for those of you who have not heard the story of how our family came about, here it is...for the 1,000th time.

When Chris and I first met, I had Gabe (if you read my blog, you know who Gabe is). Chris and I met in June 2007, when he saw my profile picture of Gabe on Myspace and randomly messaged me to ask what kind of dog Gabe is, because like me, he is a dog lover. I never responded to messages from random people on Myspace but as you know, I love talking about Gabe. So I responded to Chris's message and we went from there, messaging on Myspace and then spoke on the phone for a couple weeks. After that we met for lunch one day at TGI Fridays in Arlington. After that we hungout more and eventually I asked Chris to be my boyfriend. Chris still looks at me sometimes and says "I can't believe I married the girl who walked into Fridays that day." Most of the times I think it's good but sometimes I think he wonders what he got himself into. :)

So, I had Gabe, Chris had 2 rottweilers, Chase (male) and Dakota (female).

The November after we started dating, Chris found a female black lab wandering the streets in a bad area by his office. We named her Marley and she was one of the sweetest dogs ever. She always had a big smile on her face and she walked like a duck...with her paws facing outward. Come to find out, she was pregnant. The vet told Chris that because she was so young, it might be a false pregnancy or she might only have 2 or 3 puppies. Well, Chris came home from work on December 22 and Marley had given birth to 7 puppies. The puppies kept Chris very busy...he was constantly cleaning them and making sure that Marley was feeding them enough. Marley was a great mom and took good care of the puppies with some help from Dakota.

Once the puppies were old enough to leave Marley, Chris was able to find homes for 4 of them. One of them lives just 4 houses down the street with our friends, so we get to see her often! Marley went to a friend of the family so she could get undivided attention...from what I hear she is very loved and very spoiled. Chris couldn't find homes for the other 3 and once he got attached to them, they were staying for good. They are all females, Socks, Simba and Emma. Socks looks exactly like Marley with the same smile, except she has white on her feet that makes it look like she is wearing socks (hence the name "Socks").

When the puppies were about 5 months old, Chris came across another abandoned puppy in the same area he found Marley. He picked him up and had every intention of giving him away to a good home, but because he looked like a little baby polar bear and he had such a nice demeanor, I didn't want to let him go. So, the 7th member of our pack is Jack.

Since then, Chris has rescued several more dogs and found them all good homes. He is very picky about who he gives the dogs to because he wants to make sure they are all loved and taken good care of. One lady who took in one of Chris's rescue dogs was the lady that Chris bought my engagement ring from. Chris even found a little golden lab puppy who had gotten his face bit by another dog and took him to the vet to get fixed up. He was such a happy puppy and the dogs loved playing with him. He lived with us for a couple weeks and now he lives with a lady and another dog and he is very loved and goes on lots of outdoor adventures.

One of my favorite stories is about Patch. Chris found Patch last year on his birthday. He is a Jack Russell and his poor tail was and still is crooked because we think someone tried to crop it with a rope. Patch was living with us for about a week and my mom came over for dinner and she immediately fell in love with Patch. She swore that after our family dog Annie passed away last summer, her and my dad would never get another dog. Well, Patch went to live with my parents exactly 4 months to the day that Annie passed away. Patch is now my mom's best friend and my parent's favorite child.

I don't expect people to understand why we chose to have 7 dogs when we could easily find some of them other homes. But like I said, they are our family and without all of them our family wouldn't be complete. We agreed that we won't ever have this many dogs again but in the meantime we are having fun with them. They are the best form of entertainment we could have. They all get along well and they are content just hanging out with us and each other. I might have to vacuum more than most people and Chris most likely picks up more poop in the backyard than others, but it's worth it and we wouldn't change anything about our family.