Dog Days

Almost three years ago, Ben and I adopted Loren’s dogs: Stella, a 4 year old pit mix (jokes on us… shes a herding dog) and Bebe, a 13 year old chihuahua. Don’t roll your eyes, and say “ew…a chihuahua”…we’ve made many people walk back that statement when we explain how we got said chihuahua.

I grew up with dogs and cats my whole life. Ben had goldfish…that poor deprived man. There was no hesitation about us taking the girls when Loren died. Ben and I didn’t have pets, and had the time to give them attention during the summer before we went back to work.

You know those parents who have thousands of pictures of their kids… I’m one of them now, but before Brooklyn came along, we had thousands of pictures of our dogs. They went everywhere with us. We went on night walks, car rides, ice cream stops, our parent’s houses, hikes- you name it, they did it.

Fast forward to when I got pregnant, we were convinced that the dogs were going to be protective and intrigued by Brooklyn. Bebe was very clingy the entire pregnancy and Stella… well shes just clingy. Bebe would curl up next to me on the couch, next to my belly in bed and loved to sit on Brooklyn at the dinner table. Yes, we held the tiny dog at the dinner table. I did a lot of research on how to help the dogs adjust and introduce them to a baby. I put Brooklyn’s toys out, her bouncer chair out, crib and even put a baby doll in the bouncer. Both dogs seemed genuinely interested in the baby doll and thought we were in for smooth sailing. We were really looking forward to having those cute videos of the dogs loving on the baby. Mother of all things holy we were wrong.

PBT (Pre brain tumor) we tried to take all of the girls out for walks as much as we could. The weather was warm, Brooklyn was up late so we could get out later, and the dogs seemed to let us be. They didn’t seem overly annoying, but lets be realistic, when we started leaving the house more frequently with a baby and her stuff, taking the dogs stuff really seemed to become a pain in the ass. Potty breaks started turning into staring competitions with the neighbors until they gave the dogs treats. When youre trying to leave, clearly you need the dog to potty so when you get in the car, you don’t have the incessant panting and whining and pacing because OUT OF THE BLUE Stella realizes shes got to take a poop fifteen minutes into your hour long car ride. That doesn’t frustrate me AT ALL 🙄.

A whole month in the hospital didn’t help us at all. You have a new baby for 8 weeks and then shes gone in the hospital but so were we. Ben’s parents stayed at out house and the girls were once again the center of attention. Multiple walks, treats, all the belly rubs and basically the baby didn’t exist to them. Priorities obviously changed when we came home from the hospital with what felt like a new baby all over again. I was constantly scared shitless that we were going to end up in the emergency room or that we were going to get admitted again. I didn’t have the energy to try and juggle baby mom and dog mom life at the moment.

Don’t get me wrong, we love the dogs. They are irreplaceable and priceless because they were Loren’s babies. However, Stella is high maintenance and Bebe…well shes old and stubborn. Where we run into problems with the Stella dog…She sure is no pit mix. We have had multiple vets tell us that shes a herding dog- high energy, very smart but bored. She needs a job- like fetching diapers would be sweet or even getting beer out of the refrigerator. Instead, she has assigned herself to following me to the bathroom, to the bedroom, into Brooklyn’s room, into the kitchen, the living room, back to the kitchen….and she always seems to be underfoot. She wants to go inside, then outside, then inside, then outside and it seems to be at the most inconvenient times like when she has just come in and I’m trying to put Brooklyn down for her nap. She never used to bark. Guess what she does now. Barks. At all of the wrong times! Bebe too. Right. During. Naptime. I’d be less irritated about it if our child would take decent naps- meaning longer than 20 minutes.

When I’m telling you Stella is needy, I’m not pulling your leg. She acts like she is starved for attention, as if shes never been pet a day in her life. Why does this annoy us you ask? Well, the number of times she has stepped in between Ben and Brooklyn, so Stella gets the love and Brooklyn doesn’t, are too many to count. It’s frustrating because she’s so unaware of where she is that shes almost stepped on Brooklyn.
Stella will basically sit on top of you, but just next enough to you so she can flop over on you in a desperate attempt to tell you that “no one has even sniffed my butt today, let alone pet me” which is a LIE! I pet her…I don’t sniff her butt. That would be weird.

Some days, like during big chemo weeks, my stress level is at an all time high and I want to be left alone and that’s when Stella says “game on mommy”. On days when I’m touched out and overwhelmed, the dog decides that she accepts the challenge to push my buttons. She decides needs to stare at me, that she needs to sit on top of me, bite her nails, lick her butt for an obnoxiously long time and that is like a fork scratching fine China (your teeth can thank me later). Our relationship with the dogs FOR SURE changed after we had baby but even more after you add cancer on top.

Don’t think I’ve forgotten the Chicken.
Bebe…our old lady. Our middle of the night water drinker. Our cat collar wearing, butt scooting, barks at nothing, “I’ll shit in your polo”, rumba Bebe.

You’d think we have a puppy at times. The way she tears through the house, jumping on the couch and digging at God knows what on the blanket before she finally settles on the back of the couch to sleep. Until she decides there is absolutely nothing outside and she needs to bark at it right in the middle of naptime. Don’t worry, when it’s time to go outside, she DEFINITELY acts like a 15 year old chichauah. “If I walk super slow, someone will pick me up and put me outside, then I can tear back in the house, find all the crumbs I can before I go back to bed.”

Bebe doesn’t eat when the girls get fed. She is a grazer. She likes to eat the crumbs under the high chair, under the counter, the crumbs that aren’t there, the bubble solution off the floor- even if it gives her raging diarrhea. Yes…that happened. Shes had accidents in the house- partly because she refuses to poop outside when its cold, even if we stand outside with her. It’s like a giant 🖕. “You make me go outside…I’ll shit in the corner.” The last bout of pooping accidents happened because she decided to rumba the kitchen and licked up bubbles that landed on the floor, resulting in the most foul smelling doggie diarrhea you can think of. Some how, a polo of Ben’s had ended up on the floor near our bedroom door. The dog gets up and I take her outside to pee so she doesn’t pee on the floor. Come back in and all I smell is poop but I cant see it! I get the night light and turn the brightness all the way up. Lo and behold, there is poop smeared on the carpet and in the collar of Ben’s polo shirt. 🤦‍♀️ I’m so glad I invested in a carpet scrubber when we got the dogs…definitely worth it. The polo immediately survived in the wash but man it was a close call.

The dogs are so sweet, they really are and we do love them very much. Its weird though, how two fur babies suddenly end up as the equivelant to someone asking “are we there yet” 50,000 times on a road trip after you have a baby, or in our case a sick baby. I know we can’t be the only parents this has happened to. Priorities shift and I have to be honest- Brooklyn takes the cake when it comes to who will get the attention first. If you ask Brooklyn, she thinks the dogs are pretty great. How did you adjusts to having a baby with pets? Did you ever resent your pets? How did your pet react to your little one?! I need to know all of the things!!!