Seriously? What were you THINKING?

So it seems that with all the excitement and warm and fuzzy (get it? fuzzy? I slay me!) feelings about the new blog, it seems appropriate to explain how we ended up with five dogs.

Dogs on Propps began simply: Koko and Holly. Koko had entered our lives in the summer of 2001 when a neighbor had found a litter of puppies abandoned at a ranch they own and asked if we wanted one. D's friend had shown the puppies to him, and when D walked into the house, he carried that puppy in his arms, set her down in the backyard, and she never left.

Holly (above) was adopted from the city shelter about a week after Lily's death. She arrived when a huge snowstorm hit, and her first exposure to her new backyard was with a fun romp in about two feet of snow with her new big sister Koko. She was playful and excited to be around people and loved everything around her. Koko had been grieving over Lily's death, and I really believe that having a puppy move in helped her tremendously.

Soon after, we all moved and the dogs became the foundational group of the Dogs on Propps.

A few months into our stay on Propps, we went to my brother's house for a Sunday full of football games. Because his wife was pregnant, they were thinking of getting rid of some of their dogs, and did I want to take this one home? D immediately said yes, and she was placed in the car to take her ride across town to her new home.

That made three.

On the ride home, there was much discussion regarding her name. My brother had named her Cha Cha, but it had never seemed right for her, and we wanted to symbolize her new life. We bandied about possibilities until we arrived at the new name: Ella. To this day, D swears that she was named after John El(El-la)way, though I stand by the story that she was named after Ella Fitzgerald.

And then one fateful day, Mike came to visit with his dog, Paolo. There had been concerns in the past that Paolo wasn't exactly "fond" of other dogs. He had some social issues, and didn't really seem interested in being anything but an only. When he walked in the front door, Ella was the first to notice. (although in retrospect, I believe the look on her face indicated, "what the hell is this?") She and Paolo approached each other, and nothing major happened, except for the normal smelling of each other's...er...rear ends. Being concerned that all of the dogs wouldn't get along, we followed them all over the house. There was much sniffing and revelry, and within fifteen minutes, it was clear that whatever issues Paolo had prior to now were of no concern. He had found himself a band of women with which to live. He was home!

So yeah, there were four. And that was cool for awhile because what's four dogs, right? It's just more chaos at feeding time, and besides, this is plenty.

And then there was the trip to the mall. Mike and I had run errands that day, and went by the mall to purchase a refrigerator as part of our errands. We stopped in a few stores, and when Mike stopped to look at a sports collectibles store, I told him I was going to go down the mall to look at the animals in the city's satellite shelter. It's a lovely place, meant to look like a pet store, but the animals there are shelter residents. Our city has done wonderful things for animals.

But I digress.

We walked through the store, looking at different dogs and reading the information about them on the signs. This one didn't like other dogs. That one hated children. We reached the end of the kennels then...at the end...one of the last dogs we would look at. This little chihuahua with a bulbous head was sitting on a pillow, looking back at us. He liked kids...he liked other dogs...and he liked cats. "Could we hold him?" The employee there said they discouraged just holding for holding's sake, but if we were really interested, we could go to The Bonding Room. Mike and I exchanged glances. That didn't sound good at all. The employee asked Mike to sign some papers saying he was interested in the dog, and we all went to the aforementioned bonding room. I was telling Mike that I didn't need to leave with that dog when the puppy was handed to me. Before I could even sit down with it, Mike was taking him from my arms, cooing at him and letting him lick his face. It was love at first sight. I knew then that we weren't leaving without Madden.

So yeah, five dogs. Because what's one more, right?

No more. I swear it. Five dogs is the limit.