This blog is probably not for the faint of heart or Martha Stewart types....

(Life with twelve dogs. Where does one begin? How does one convey life with twelve dogs. In a blog.....hmmm, pictures and videos and "true life" stories. Because you know if you dont show pics, they wont believe you. I wouldnt believe me either. Although I laugh out loud at least once a day.....I must be mad. I must be out of my mind. Do I really want to tell people this stuff anyway? Do they care? But it's so funny sometimes. I will give them "for instances" and they will just have to believe me - like Boomer insisting on cramming into this little cage. I trust they will just believe me when I say that he didnt back in either. )

I have been taking a lot of pics around here for years. It was really just for myself. I can glance over at fourteen photo albums on a shelf right now as I type this. These are for when I am old, so I can peruse them when my body starts to fail me and I wait to join my old friends. I understand I must embrace these days as someday they will be "the good ol' days." It is the inevitable, life is all about change. And yes, to make matters worse, its true - a dog is nothing but a heartbreak waiting to happen. Twelve dogs, I think I am in trouble.

I hope I can actually look at these pictures some day without sadness...I hope I can even look at them. But I would rather have them not to look at then regret not having them to look at. All my pictures are of the animals in my life - ask my mom. Lately, I have been trying to get pics of all of them together. It is not so easy. My header pic (which I love) was my first real attempt. That day, I stood on my chair and held up my egg sandwhich real high. That day, I had nine dogs. Today, I have twelve. I think I am at my limit though. Its starting to get a little unpersonalized, too unpersonalized for my standards. When they all can't fit in the bed or near the bed, that's a problem. Nine was good. Nine was manageable and easy to say. For some reason though (only known to God), even with nine dogs, I still just never felt like I was doing enough to help dogs. So I became a foster dog mom for Chihuahua Rescue. I am fulfilled.

I have the cutest little chi named Pixie Dust. I wanted everyone who ever wanted a Pixie Dust to have one, too. I would help them find one and we would save them together. I joined Chihuahua Rescue in August of 2008 hoping to "spread the love" from the South (where they arent always as kind to animals) to the NorthEast. Here we are in October and I have three fosters now. I think they are going to be pretty hard to "spread," but I never say never. One is a really ol'man nowhere near ready to say goodbye to this world (although his prior owner waits for him!) with heart disease, liver disease and three teeth left. And the other two are chi-mixes, one who was recently diagnosed (and had removed) a mast cell tumor from her rump and one who needs a little rehabbing to learn to be a dog again. Alas, I have not been able to spread any love yet, but being the optimist I am, I still have hope. I consider them "long term" fosters. This is how we have come to live with twelve dogs in a 1000 sf home on an acre of (thanks to my husband) pure dog park. We like to think of ourselves as the "misfits" here in "misfit land" and our pack's motto is Carpe Diem! (Sieze the Day!) - but you can just call us the "Shaggy Shack."

Having three fosters now, I realized my original nine dogs were pretty good dogs. I guess until you take someone else's dog, you dont realize how good your own dog is. We really do meld our own dogs into our lifestyle and you can really learn a lot from them. I learn something every day. I am the documentarist and the photographer of my own personal "National Geographic's Wild Kingdom" except I have the convenience of "working" from home. If you care, I will share it with you. I can tell you what life is like living in a large pack of dogs, a mini version of that Living With Wolf Man (on Animal Planet), a man who lives with his own wolf pack.

To make it more believable, I can give for instances and compare it to kids because we can all relate to kids being kids ourselves once. For instance, if you live with four or more dogs (like kids), chances are - there is bound to be two who dont get along. I am not talking actual knockdown fighting here either, just the annoying "MindyLou's touching me! MindyLou's touching me!" kind of stuff that starts to get on your nerves. Yup, we got that, too. Of course there are differences between kids and dogs. For instance, people moms yell stuff like pick up your socks, take out the garbage, eat your dinner, dont play with that, ask blah-blah's mom to drive, I just gave you five bucks yesterday. Dog moms yell stuff like - drop the sock, get out of the garbage, don't eat that, get down, get off, get away, drop it, gimme that, get off the table or who did this?, where's fill in blank?? and who chewed my fill in blank?? So I can definitely compare a people mom to a dog mom sort of on the same level, just on a different plane. For instance, most people moms pull old socks and pajamas, crayons, books, homework and broken toys out from under kids' beds - maybe old pizza or a moldy donut say if you didnt have dogs. I pull out empty sandwich wrappers, paper plates with centers missing, shredded snot rags, the styrofoam packaging from the chicken legs you cooked last night, two destuffed and desequeaked BRAND NEW toys and maybe a tiny little poop. Okay, in the beginning with Pixie, when we lost the channel changer one time - there were like thirty poops under the bed! Hey, I didnt know I swear! But this is what a blog is for, right? The God's honest - dont leave out the real stuff - truth. I have now learned to put wee wee pads in front of the closet for "poops" and hope I can get to them before Asia (you wanted the truth). Next blog, we can get into what we find next to the bed.

I can give you the big picture or I can give you the little details. For instance, what started out the other day as a fairly normal day, me and Boo standing at the kitchen counter like the two good buddies we are (yes, he stands right next to me on his hind legs and paws on the counter like a true friend would) sharing a fortune cookie. All was going well, I broke it in half and put half in his big mouth and half in mine. As we turned to face each other so I could read our horoscope, he sucked it in and swallowed it before I finished the first word!!!! I was in shock for like a second and then I tried to get that little tiny fortune out of "hungry hungry hippo." It wasnt happening. Rick said paper wouldnt kill him. I figured, since Laeah (foster) ate the unopened fly strip off the table (which, after I called Agway for the ingredients and found out it was mostly paper) and lived, I knew one tiny fortune couldnt hurt Boomer. I still wonder what it said. The first word was "People......" Maybe it said, "People shouldnt share their fortune cookies with pit bulls."

So this would be the real story of our life. They are all heartwarming to me and I would think any heartwarming person might find this stuff amusing. I laugh a lot here. I live with twelve dogs....every day. We have five in our bed every night. I have thought about sharing our story, but I felt I would run out of stories. Then I realized, like everyone's life, every day is a new story waiting to happen and I have never run out of things to say.....every day unfolds something new.

So today is the first day of a short vacation. I am going to try and write everyday. I type for a living though so it is hard to balance typing for fun and typing for a living - at least for me. Dont forget I have twelve dogs (and two horses and three cats and a husband.) I love living "Life in the Shaggy Shack" though. Yes, I may have taken it a little more seriously than most people, but my motto for true happiness in life and my best advice to you is "Surround yourself with things you love."