And Then There Were Two

So, we have this dog – Lily – that chews my cabinets, sometimes messes on my floor, drags her toys onto the furniture and brings me dead things. What do I do to solve the problem? Get her a friend, of course. In a short period of possibly warped thinking and an unusual period of dog-related agreement between the boss and me, we found another puppy – another long-haired miniature dachshund.

Our reasoning, well, mostly my reasoning, was that if Lily had a buddy, she wouldn’t spend her spare time climbing on the furniture or my shoulder to chew her stinky toys. She would leave the boss alone while he reads the newspaper and she would spend time playing on the floor, a place where she spends very little time at present.

Now that baby Jake has been here for a whole day, I realize that there are a few things I didn’t think of. For one thing, Lily was 11 weeks old when she came to live with us. She slept through the night, was mostly trained and ate dry dog food. Li’l Jake is 7 weeks old today, does none of those things and probably won’t in the immediate future. He was up at 5:30 this morning, doesn’t know why the newspaper is in the corner and insists on having his kibble broken and moistened. He has peed outside a couple of times but that’s only because he pees VERY often and we just happened to be outside when the urge hit.

It’s not hard to know what Lily and Jake think of each other. Lily sits on Jake or stands over him to show she’s the boss while Jake wishes Lily was his mamma, nutritionally speaking, and tries to nip her insignificant little tits while she’s trying very hard to be dominant. Lily, being a lady, takes exception to being chewed on and usually jumps up somewhere out of reach and glares alternately at me and the pup. Jake is a feisty little guy, thinks that Lily’s stuff is his stuff too, and goes after it relentlessly. Lily, just because she’s a sweetie, generally gives in.

It will be interesting and, I am sure, fun to watch these pooches become friends. I’m not really nuts – I’ve just always had a dog or two (or four) and my home now feels more like it should than it has in over a year. Two little dogs don’t take up much space – Lily and Jake, when all grown up, won’t weigh as much as a small Cockapoo, they just have twice as many muddy feet.