The Barthauer Home for Abandoned Animals

Most of you know that we are a decidedly "dog" family. Ever since my parents finally let me and my brother get a dog when we were kids, (in my mind there was much preliminary begging and pleading, but that could all just be in my imagination), I've always had a dog around.  When I was dating my husband, he decided to get a dog, since his parents had never let him have one as a kid.  His big mistake was taking me with him to pick one out.  Sam was THE cutest puppy I had ever seen in my life. Ever.  I still remember the day I first saw him very clearly.

Most of you had the, uh...pleasure of meeting our Beagle, Sam (short for Samuel Adams, the beer and the Patriot).  We loved that dog and miss him still, despite the pain-in-the-you-know-what he could be at times.  Most of the time.

A few years after he died, we decided it was time to get another dog.  We made a trip to a local animal shelter and found sweet Bella. The boys picked her out right away - they knew she was the dog for us. How anyone ever left her at a shelter, I do not know.  She's a wonderful dog.

But, we quickly discovered how much she LOVES other dogs. She's always seemed happiest when running up and down the fence with our neighbor's dogs, or when staying with her friends, Waldo and Olivia (two sweet, large dogs).  This is how, a few years after getting Bella, we came to decide that maybe we needed another dog. 

Off to the same shelter again.  This time it was little Ricky who curled up in our laps and chose us to be his new family.

Obviously we couldn't leave the shelter without taking this dog with us. He's about five pounds of complete cuteness.  The boys fell in love with him almost immediately. Well...we all did, really. 

Although, Benjamin was more interested in the bunny they had at the shelter that day.

REALLY interested. 

I'm pretty sure the bunny was bigger than Ricky.

We had to bring Bella to the shelter to meet Ricky before they would let us adopt him. I wish I had a video of their meeting, even though it had to be the most boring meeting of two animals ever. 

Needless to say, there was absolutely no concern whatsoever that the dogs were going to get along just fine. 

Unlike Bella, Ricky is a good traveler.  Poor Bella gets carsick, making it impossible to take her more than five minutes away in the car (fortunately that's how close our vet is) without giving her medicine to keep her from vomiting. Medicine that doesn't always work.  Ricky wants to go with everyone, everywhere, every time they're leaving the house. 

He's even traveled to Indiana where he got to meet Greeley.

Greeley wasn't too sure about it.  But Ricky eventually made himself right at home.

 

We feel that we really got lucky twice in a row with our visits to the animal shelter.  

We also thought that we were done adding pets to our family for the time being.

Then one day recently my husband came home with this.

She's our new class pet - a red-eared slider turtle named Maybe.  And she's actually not much bigger than a quarter right now, but will grow to approximately four to eight inches big in the next two years.

Basically, someone my husband works with bought the turtle for her son and he didn't want it.  This person apparently figured that chances were pretty good that a house FULL of boys might be interested. 

She was right. 

Fortunately, we have friends nearby who have owned turtles for years and they gave us advice and some things their turtles had outgrown.  A trip to PetSmart over the weekend filled in the rest and now Maybe is a very happy turtle.

happy swimming turtle

 

 

And the first thing the boys do every day is check on their turtle. 

Apparently we are also "turtle" people. 

But that is definitely it on the pets for awhile. Unless, of course, we come across another animal as small as Maybe, as cute as Ricky or as sweet as Bella that's in need of a home.

Just no cats. Or snakes.

~ Dori