Our pet history goes as follows:
Around the time mom married dad, she had two very cute Dachshunds. Fritz and Leisel. Both were miniature, smooth-haired, black and tan weiner dogs. She got Fritz from a pet store, and mail ordered Leisel. Both were very cute little dogs, with lots of personality to make up for their size. Fritz was the good, well-trained one; Leisel was the maverick, always getting in trouble. They loved each other at first sight. I sometimes playfully joke that they were a "married" dog couple. Fritz could never keep his paws off of Leisel in spring, so she got pregnant every year with a litter of 2-4 pups, and 1 of the pups was always red, due to one of the parents having a red grandparent. Both dogs had pedigrees, so mom could sell the pups as genuine prebreeds. They ended up having 38 pups in their time together, before Leisel got fixed in her old age. Fritz passed away from pancreatic cancer before I was born. Leisel was still around when I was born, and mom said she was very gentle with my brother and I. Somehow, she and Fritz knew we were "human pups." Leisel passed away when I was 2 from breast cancer.
We didn't have another pet again until I turned 7. Honestly, we couldn't really have a dog because our backyard was not fenced in, and (mom didn't tell my brother and I this at the time, but) our parents were busy raising us kids. However, when I was 7, my brother met his life-long friend, whose guinea pig had gotten pregnant, and she had given birth to a litter of pups. When they were big enough, we went to pick them out, and mom chose the cute, quiet, black female one named Midnight. She was so much fun as a pet :). She was a real learning experience for me. You would be surprised how much personality those little rodents have. She kept us happy for 4 years. Mom thinks she died of a guinea pig heart-attack that one morning, because honestly, there is no other explanation for how she could have died so suddenly. At least she was outdoors in her favorite spot.
After Midnight, we got our first "big dog." By then, we had moved into a house with a fenced-in backyard, and mom wanted a tough dog that could withstand the cold midwestern winters. So we adopted Aspen. She was an Alaskan Malamute, as well as a rescue dog. Goodness she was a learning experience. She weighed 75 lbs. and was very strong. She was also very headstrong and slightly feral. Mom had to constantly remind her who the real Alpha in the family was, because Aspen always was testing her. I loved her to bits. None of us knew how much fun big dogs were until we got her. Life was never boring with her around ;). She lived to be 8 years old before bone cancer took her. My mom still dreams about her.
3 years later, we got Ginger. My half-brother had a friend in his cycling club whose family couldn't take care of their dog anymore, so we adopted her. She too was a rescue dog. She lived with us in Texas for most of her life. Having her was such a huge change from Aspen. Ginger was a German Shepherd/Husky mix, and a beautiful dog at that. She looked like a small Shepherd with slight Husky coloring on her. Sweetest, most intelligent dog you ever met. She almost never barked either; she "talked" instead :D. She moved with us to CA in 2012. It was quite an adventure, traveling 1600 miles with a moving truck and a dog in the backseat. Sadly, she got cancer in 2013 and passed away a year later, poor baby :(. She was only 9 years old too.
A month after she passed, we got Domino as part of the healing process. I've already mentioned him before, so you all know about him. He technically has "outlived" our girl dogs, because he is now 12/13 years old, and still healthy in spite of his age.
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