frauhahn

Thnks for the invite Celeste! I loved looking at everyone's pics and stories, and it's true, Celeste-you tell a great story!
so-here are my babies:
Winnie is 14 years old-we got her as a rescue puppy. She had had a broken leg before we got her-we didn't learn how it happened. She looked like a lab until she was about 8, and then the shepherd took over-she used to love to swim, hunt, and play frisbie, but at 14 she's very lame and has retired from all that-she does love to referee her younger "sisters" when they play, though, and she's the undisputed boss when it comes to telling us to bring on the grub-very healthy appetite! Recently, she stopped eating much and I thought it was probably time to put her down. I decided to buy her a senior formula dog food, and her zest came back-when my husband tried to offer her the old stuff, she refused to eat it. . .
Next is Heidi. She's 6 now. She's the only one we bought as a baby. Might have been a mistake-she's a spoiled rotten diva!! We bought her after a rescue lab we'd had snuck off one night to lick some road kill up about a mile away and got hit by a car. I was devastated! And when I went to a rescue store at a pet store the head lady treated me like I was a deviant for letting a dog out without a chain. The lady was from a big city-she had no idea about how we country folk live-acres and acres of free land around us far from a road. So-we decided to get a puppy. My students had been taking very good care of me, since I was so distraught, and insisted that the new puppy come to class-Heidi met at least 200 teenagers that day and decided that she had an adoring public and was a big star and the rest is history! Even though she's a lab, she absolutely hates water! If I'm in the kitchen old Winnie and baby Holly are underfoot waiting for a bowl to pre-wash or a sample to taste-test. Not Heidi-she's laying on the couch waiting for me to bring it to her. . .Heidi will lie at my feet when I read in bed until she hears daddy coming-then she scurries up to his pillow, snores like she's been asleep for hours and won't move so he can come into bed-he has to grab her by the collar and flip her-and she continues the snoring routine as if she's so far gone she hasn't noticed.
Summer before last, I was sure that Winnie wouldn't make it through the summer. We were in the UP and I was worried about how Heidi would be depressed if she were suddenly alone-so-I found an ad for a 7 month old lab pup. Took the other two out to meet her, and against my DH's wishes paid for her out of some casino winnings and took her home to our summer place in the UP. First morning she got up very early so I took her down to the dock to fish with me-she jumped after the bobber and discovered swimming-yeahhh!!!! 2 favorite hobbies-swimming and fetching!!! Convinced her that fetching bobbers wasn't a good idea (especially after she caught a hook in the leg), so she decided that retrieving fish was way more fun! She's the family clown, and the star of my avatar. She loves food, but wolfs it down so fast that we have to put her food in a wobbly kong-this doesn't stop her from bringing in a metal food dish and banging it on the floor when she's hungry. Did I mention that she's way smarter than we are?
So-after 2 years, we're still a three dog family and loving it!