Friends have told us we’re crazy for traveling with two large dogs for a year. Sometimes, we do feel a little crazy. But you know what’s really nuts? Living with eight dogs in one house for a week.
My mom has a dog problem — she can’t stop bringing them home. After our family dog died two years ago — after, by a miracle of God, surviving 16 years of eating popcorn and licking ice cream bowls — my mom began volunteering with the local SPCA. Her goal was to foster dogs. She failed. Every dog she fostered she kept. Gradually her quiet, dogless house began to fill with adopted Shitzus, poodle mixes and chihuahuas. She’s at six.
My mom is not alone in this. My stepdad, Dar, who is by nature a surly, tough-talking jokester, now openly sweet-talks the dogs as he prepares their meals of boiled chicken, rice, cottage cheese and wet dog food.
These dogs are a ratty crew of misfits — pesky and demanding. But they’ve suckered my parents into surrendering their home, their bed and their lives to them. All it takes is a snort from a shitzu or a prairie-dog-style beg from a chihuahua and my folks turn to putty in little paws. Each of the six dogs has its own behavioral issue, health problem or social anxiety. Some are old. Some were peripheral victims of the
housing crisis. Some were abused and left for dead. All were abandoned and homeless — until they met the world’s biggest suckers.
As if rescuing this bunch weren’t enough, each week mom and Dar head to the pound to pick up a filthy dog in need of some grooming and a little TLC. For dogs so matted and dirty you can’t see their face, a bath and trim can be the difference between being adopted and not. Dar struggles with visiting the pound. For all his tough talk, seeing several rows of unwanted dogs is too much for him to bear. My mom, in her capris and heeled sandals, surveys every cage looking for a small dog — adoptable, dirty and scared. She keeps a standing appointment with a groomer — every Thursday. On this Thursday, she picks a scruffy terrier mix. He has a good disposition and big brown eyes. Mom likes him; Dar does, too — but not enough to entertain the thought of a seventh dog in the house.
Scott and I joke about our own mutts and their mysterious pedigrees — Jack being part pig, Isabel being equal parts jackal and demon. We’re proud to have rescues. We always will — even though we’ve been known to drool over the occasional well-behaved Rhodesian Ridgeback or Great Pyrenees at the dog park (usually while Jack is taking a dump in the worst place possible and Isabel is barking at some dog from the top of a picnic table).
(Left to right, clockwise) Travis, Mia, Lucky Spike, Miss Priss, Kiki, Scruffy
At mom’s house, dogs come and go as they please through the open sliding glass door separating the living room and back patio. A barricade prevents the sassy six from entering the dining room, hall and guest bedrooms. Little dogs with big personalities and behavioral issues can’t be completely trusted. Look at a small dog cross or ignore the little bugger, and he’ll invariably get even by lifting a leg on a dining room chair.
Jack loves small dogs with his whole 75-pound being. But unnerved by the six kamikaze balls of fluff traveling in a swarm like killer bees with high-pitched barks, Jack cowered and looked to me for help. Isabel, not fully convinced she’s a dog, found higher ground with the people, a healthy distance away. But soon enough, all the dogs settled. The pack went went from six plus two to an integrated eight within an afternoon.
Evenings at my mom’s house were peaceful, if not entertaining. At night we took to the couch for a movie. Jack and Isabel at the foot of the sofa. Miss Priss sleeping atop the couch cushion. Travis on Dar’s lap. Mia on mom’s. Scruffy pacing with indecision about whether to be on the couch or on the ground or on the couch. Lucky Strike standing guard at the slider. And Kiki doing what Kiki does best — seducing me with those ridiculous chihuahua eyes.
It might be crazy, but it works. Six dogs in one house. It’s loud at times, and there are the occasional “accidents,” but I’m sure my folks couldn’t imagine it any other way. These furry rescues have done more than just infiltrate my parents’ house — they’ve helped mom and Dar find a cause into which they can pour their time and love (and, quite possibly, my inheritance). Little dogs all over California’s Central Valley are better off because of it.
—Jill