My last post was about our latest dog at the time, so it seems mildly appropriate that this one should be too. At the time we got Marshall, he was joining our Dachshund mix Barney (pictured sort of badly to the right*). The two dogs got along pretty terribly. Marshall is a rambunctious dog with and endless love of wrestling and play. Barney isn’t really a dog; he will cuddle with his chosen human readily enough, and is sweet and the least threatening dog in the world, but he doesn’t really know how to play and isn’t very energetic. After about 10 minutes of wrestling, Barney would be done but the other dog wouldn’t and he’d end up retreating to his kennel. This went on for months.

Eventually we moved. Barney also has a bit of a bladder problem, almost exclusively related to fear. Yell at him, yell at the other dog, yell at the TV, and he’ll piss himself. By the time we moved out, he’d killed our carpets and the cost of the replacement wasn’t small. After a metric ton of deliberation, we decided to give Barney up. This wasn’t easy, both because we loved him and because almost no one else would want a dog that’s known to ruin your stuff, but we persevered and after a couple of weeks, a couple of friends of ares ended up taking him in. He fits in with their household ten thousand times better than he ever did with ours.

Since Marshall is my wife’s dog, I was really without a pet for a couple of months following this. I’m am not a petless person, so I’d kept my eye open for a suitable buddy for the current dog and after much searching, we stumbled on a black specimen with which I fell in love.

Before we’d even gotten her home, I’d rechristened her “Lunchbox” on the theory that that name was adorable and it’s important to not take dogs too seriously. We’ve had a couple of months with her now and she’s coming along quite well. I suspect she was a stray or nearly a stray when brought to the shelter, as she doesn’t much know how to behave in a house. She’s learning though. Possibly the most important bit is that how she and Marshall get along. They bonded surprisingly quickly and now their favorite activity is to wrestle their way through our living room. I think they judge their level of fun by how many pieces of furniture they’ve knocked over.

*Black dogs are the freaking devil to photograph. Shame I like them so much.

As of late, it has been puppy time around our apartment. Just a few weeks before our set date to spring off into matrimony, Arielle went on a dog hunt and found an adorable basset/lab mix. I played devil-on-the-shoulder and convinced her to bring him home with us. You see him to the left there in one of his few moments of tranquility. In our previous dog hunts and this latest one, the wife and I have shown a proclivity to find the calmest and best behaved dogs in the area.

Barney, our two year old dachshund mutt, is routinely the subject of much praise from people we meet. The new puppy, now christened Marshall, is astoundingly well behaved for a puppy, though we are still keeping a hawkish eye on him.

It’s quite fun to watch the pair of them romping and tussling around the place. Though I feel bad for the older, calmer dog; he doesn’t wish to play nearly as much as the puppy, and will often retreat to the safety of his kennel where Marshall isn’t allowed to go.

We weren’t sure what size the new puppy would be when we got him. We still don’t know for sure. But with the realization that he was more likely a mix of Basset and Yellow Labrador, it dawned on us that he’d probably be quite large. The prospect isn’t too daunting, however, as we both like big dogs as well as little.

Well, it’s been quite a week. On Monday I started a new job working as a computer repair technician at a place called Hands On Computer Repair over in Grand Prairie. It’s a good job so far; although its certainly more stressful then my first job: sitting in an empty computer lab for hours on end. This week, I handled mostly the overflow work from the owner’s IT business, but we unofficially open our doors after this weekend, so my workflow should start including walk-ins very soon.

As well, the GF and I saw a really cute dog a few months ago as part of a foster organization’s participation in the grand opening of a Petsmart near our apartment. Recently, I spotted him again on Petfinder and found out that the organization was going to be at the same Petsmart today. We decided to see if he’d be there again. We went and well, as you can see he ended up coming home with us.

We are in a two to four week trial period now, seeing if things work out having him here. He’s quite a sweet boy and very well behaved. Knowing me, you can probably expect to see a bunch more pictures of him as time goes by.