Our Babies

Sugar Baby and Bailey On A Chair

Kelli and I don’t have children. While we would like to have children someday there are many factors which might make it difficult to do so (not to mention that it would be dangerous for her to get pregnant so soon after her surgery).

Before Kelli came into my life I had ambivalent feelings about pets. A pet fish seemed like too much of a commitment. While I would never be cruel to animals, I didn’t understand that I would become so attached to a pair of dogs.

Now I have two dogs who I talk to and sing to and do some amazing amount of running around for.

It’s amazing to me how, after a long day of work when I am sometimes not very fond of humans, two 20 pound bundles of fur and energy can be so excited to see me that I can’t help but smile. Oh yeah, then clean up the poop.

It’s nice to have Bailey or Sugar snuggle up to me on the couch while I watch a movie during my day off when Kelli is at work. They don’t seem to mind if I’m watching the Kevin Bacon movie “The Woodsman” or the John Waters movie “A Dirty Shame,” they’re just happy to wedge themselves next to my side and get a couple of scratches or pets here and there.

Bailey Snuggled On Her Pig

Bailey is a gray nine year old Miniature Schnauzer female. She was bought in a pet store in Anchorage. This was the last dog my wife will buy at a pet store. Pure breeds have more problems due to their over-breeding and pet store dogs usually come from “puppy mills” who over-breed like crazy. So Bailey is our high maintenance girl.

She’s a diabetic so we have to give her insulin injections twice a day and take her to the vet every two or three months for a glucose curve. She has chronic dry-eye in her right eye which has progressed to the point where she hasn’t made tears in that eye for years. We have to give her eye-drops and eye-ointment and clean out the goo in her eye with saline solution several times a day. She had cataract surgery in her good eye and for a while we had a complicated maintenance routine with that eye too.

Oh yeah, and the diaper? She sometimes loses bladder control in her sleep. Since she usually sleeps in our bed, we use Pull-Ups on her.

Yet, for all the maintenance, I wouldn’t trade her for any dog. She’s sort of a spaz and not all that coordinated but she’s so incredibly loveable. She’s the cuddler of the two.

Sugar Baby is our other mini-Schnauzer. She’s eight years old and pure white. She could have been a show dog (although being white used to make it impossible to show her because white schnauzers were considered “flawed.”) She was bought from a respectable breeder in Minnesota and has almost no health problems, save the time last year when she had hemorrhagic gastroenteritis (HGE) which could have killed her (and did a number on our bank account).

Sugar Baby

Sugar likes attention on her own terms. She’ll go off and sleep in the closet at night if it suits her. Or she’ll climb up and burrow under your arm until you pet her. Then she’ll put out a paw and slap at your hand as if to say “you’re not done yet!” Yet she’s just as likely to come up and snuggle against me if I’m feeling sick.

They are precious and I’d never have guessed that I’d fall in love with two dogs. They are indeed our kids. We take them to doctor appointments and they wake us up at all hours of the night and they get into things they are not supposed to. We have to bathe them and diaper one of them and make sure they get the best food (prescription food, of course).

It’s been amazing that having pets has made it impossible to get to far into my own head when I’m home alone. I used to live for great stretches of time “in my head.” Not in a freaky autistic way but it’s easy to get self absorbed when it’s just yourself in a room. Now I always have a dog or two in the room with me when I’m home and Kelli’s at work, which is a good thing. I don’t get too wrapped up in whatever I’m doing, which is good when what I’m doing is mind-numbing or tedious (housework, paying bills, etc.)

I can’t get too down and out when there are two fluffy bundles of joy here to give me some attention and distraction.

Scott Adams mentioned at the end of one of his “Dilbert Principle” books that people should get a pet because it will improve their quality of life. At the time I heard this on audio I dismissed it immediately. Now I think he was onto something.

Oops, I guess I gotta go let the dogs out now!