Dogs and dirt

Dylan was really quiet last night while Mike and I made dinner. As you probably know, silence is never a good thing. Mike went in search of our child who is never silent... he found her on the side of the house with a very unhappy dog, both were covered in dirt. Poor Willow was just laying there afraid to move. I should preface this with the fact that Dylan loves to play in the dirt and Willow is too dumb to know she can walk away from anything Dylan pulls her into. That being said, I love the fact that Dylan has three playmates at all times. Unfortunately for Willow, she is the favorite because she doesn't know she can say no. Dylan just drags her around and then tells Willow to sit, stay, lay down or whatever. Willow is so sweet she just does as she is told.

Our dogs have gone through some major transitions over the past few months. All three dogs have been indoor dogs since day one, and all three have had beds in our room. In March we had new carpet put in our bedrooms and the dogs suddenly found themselves booted from our room and found their beds in the living room instead. Willow was the only one who had a hard time with this change… she is always at my feet so sleeping in another room nearly sent her over the edge.

Poor Willow was the cause of the next change… the day I had my carpet cleaned in the living room, Willow came bolting in with red clay mud all over her feet, she was just excited to see me, but I was so mad I made the decision right then and there that the dogs needed to stay outside! Again this change was hardest on Willow. I felt terrible because our dogs really are used to being near us all the time.

About a month ago, after the dogs had totally ruined our new lawn in the backyard, (They had about an acre but chose to ruin the little patch of new grass…) Mike put up a fence that cuts our backyard in half. Guess which side the dogs are in? I like the change because I don’t have dog hair floating around all the time and I no longer have to worry about dog poop!

I feel sorry for Hayden because I’m afraid she won’t have the same relationship with the dogs as Dylan does. When I look back at videos of Dylan as an infant there is always a dog in the picture. When she learned to crawl a big incentive was to catch a dog’s tail. All three dogs were like siblings to Dylan and now Hayden has only had minimal contact with them, you know, out of sight, out of mind…