We weren't looking for a dog yet. It had only been a couple of months since we'd lost our sweet Sugar, but I saw a dog posted on Facebook by our local animal shelter, a few days after Christmas. We'd already decided when we did get another dog, we'd adopt one, who needed a home. I see all kinds of dogs on social media since I follow all the nearby shelters and rescues, but something about this one caught my eye. She was listed as a dachshund mix and you know how we love those, so I just called to ask about her size and age. It wasn't really a serious inquiry. Just a little curious. I told the guy I was just going to come down and see how big she was, but no commitment.

He told me she'd been picked up with a chihuahua after the two had reportedly been roaming the streets together for some time. I suppose they'd been living a lawless life of trespassing, loitering, and vagrancy until, one day, it caught up with the pair. Someone had called the doggie Po-Po on them. Maybe it was an overturned garbage can or a dug up flower bed that finally got them apprehended, I'm not sure, but, now, they were in the lockup. Doing hard time.

  
I got to the shelter and the nice man took me back to the gate that led to where the dogs were. He told me the dog in question and her little accomplice had just gotten back from being spayed at the vet and he told me to wait there. He came back out with the groggy canine and the phone started ringing, so he handed me her leash and told me to get acquainted with her.

Well, she was just precious. I've always been a sucker for a hound dog. And her feet reminded me of the Basset hounds Davis and I had when we were newlyweds. I'd recognize those feet anywhere. Dachshund and Bassett.You can't get much more hound dog than that. "We have a big front porch that she'd look perfect lying on, while we rock in our rocking chairs and sip lemonade," I thought.

I sat down on the floor and spoke to her and she crawled right up in my lap and put her head in the crook of my arm."Oh, no.....this is not good. I'm just here to see how big you are. We shouldn't be getting this friendly just yet," I thought. I talked to her sweetly and she looked up at me with her big brown eyes and then laid her head on my chest and stared in my eyes.

"Oh, my word. Don't look into her eyes. Look away. You're not ready. She's too big. Look at those feet. And Davis wants to take some trips before we get another dog. It's rainy and cold and not a good time to have to housetrain anything." There were so many reasons to leave her there.

But, those eyes. They told me she needed us. Something about them had drawn me down there.

I knew I couldn't leave her....especially when a lady came in to adopt her chihuahua friend, while I was still on the floor playing lounge chair to my new sedated friend. The duo rubbed heads and licked each other as if they knew that their longtime companionship had come to a fork in the road, but neither the lady or myself was looking for two dogs. One of us wasn't even sure she was looking for one dog, but I filled out the paperwork, wrote the check, and brought her home. We named her Ruby and she started reeling us in.
They think Ruby is a little over a year old and, needless to say, it's been a long time since we had a puppy around here. It's been a good while since Sugar wanted to chew on anything or run in circles around the sofa or chase after a ball. The other day, I was standing out in the blowing rain, chatting with two of my neighbors as we were all in our front yards waiting on our young dogs to do their business. Two of us in our pajama pants and all of us looking a bit frazzled, we were all senior dog parents discussing our recent shifts to puppy parenthood. We'd forgotten about this stage. We were used to Zoey, Sugar, and Princess and their sedate nursing home pace to which we'd become accustomed and now Izzy, Ruby, and Olive were giving us a run for our money. I mean, it's been years since I've had to reward anybody for urinating in the correct location, but here I am. Of all of her strong points, though, perhaps Ruby's most impressive skill is her ability to repeatedly bring me the moss out of the bottom of all of our houseplants. It makes me suspect that, somewhere along the way, she's received highly specialized training specifically for this task as she seems to have a real passion for moss removal. I mean, dogs with that kind of superior intelligence and dedication to their work don't just come along every day.
There's just been that something that was missing in our house since Sugar died and Ruby has brought it back to us. I can't explain it. Davis and I found ourselves stopping to love on other people's dogs and using our best baby talk to speak to them.....I suppose in an effort to fill the void that losing a pet leaves inside a dog lover. It doesn't take long for the bond to form between a family and a dog, but I'm not going to lie. The first three days were rough. I cried and cried some more, feeling guilty and just wanting Sugar back. I felt kind of like one of those men, who loses his beloved wife of many years and goes out and gets himself a new wife, two months later. It was just a weird few days of conflicted feelings, but I think I'm finally working through them.
Carson gave me a beautiful charcoal portrait of Sugar for Christmas. Such a wonderful gift with a lot of love and sweetness behind it. I hung it where I could see her from my chair. It was drawn from a picture taken the night before she died. She was looking up at me with her tired eyes. A precious picture of my dear, old friend, who knew she was so very loved. We did all we could to give Sugar a good life up to her very last day. And we grieved for her and are still grieving for her, but I think she would say it's ok for us to love another dog. It would be a shame for a home that loves dogs as much as ours to sit empty and void of squeaky toys when so many dogs need a family to care for them. Ruby has captured our hearts in just one short week. But, there will never be another Sugar. Just like, one day, we'll be saying there will never be another Ruby. We're hooked and in love and have signed up to face another heartache, one day. But, oh, the love and joy we'll have until
then.                         
I was gone from here longer than I'd planned, but I've been having trouble getting out of vacation mode. We had a most wonderful Christmas and I hope you did, too. We ate too much and got too much, but it was such a sweet time with our family. It's just all over too fast.

On New Year's Eve, we ate with friends and came home before midnight, because that's just where we are in life, I suppose. That night, I dreamed that I was called to Washington to stand in for Melania in the official White House Christmas card picture. Apparently, she was sick and, after scouring the country for a look alike, I was the one chosen to be photographed as her double with the President and their son. I mean, clearly, I was the obvious choice. So, I'm not sure what all 2019 has in store for me, but I guess you could say that I must be feeling awfully confident as I head into this new year.

Y'all have a good day trying to adjust to back to normal life. It's going to be rough for a little while.